A devcontainer example

.devcontainer__devcontainer.json

// For format details, see https://aka.ms/devcontainer.json. For config options, see the
// README at: https://github.com/devcontainers/templates/tree/main/src/debian
{
	"name": "Debian",
	// Or use a Dockerfile or Docker Compose file. More info: https://containers.dev/guide/dockerfile
	"build": {
		"dockerfile": "Dockerfile"
	},

	// Configure tool-specific properties.
	"customizations": {
		"vscode": {
			"settings": {
				"terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash"
			},

			"extensions": [
				"mads-hartmann.bash-ide-vscode",
				"rogalmic.bash-debug"
			]
		}
	},

	// Features to add to the dev container. More info: https://containers.dev/features.
	"features": {
		"ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/common-utils:2": {
			"installZsh": false,
			"installOhMyZsh": false,
			"installOhMyZshConfig": false,
			"username": "dave"
		},
		"ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/github-cli:1": {},
		"./ysap/features/bats-core": {}
	},

	// Use 'forwardPorts' to make a list of ports inside the container available locally.
	// "forwardPorts": [],

	// Uncomment to connect as root instead. More info: https://aka.ms/dev-containers-non-root.
	"remoteUser": "dave"
}

.devcontainer__Dockerfile

FROM debian:bookworm-slim

RUN apt-get -y update \
 && DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends \
        bash-builtins \
        bind9-dnsutils \
        binutils \
        bsdextrautils \
        ca-certificates \
        coreutils \
        curl \
        diffutils \
        dos2unix \
        ed \
        file \
        findutils \
        fzf \
        inetutils-ping \
        moreutils \
        ripgrep \
        tmux \
        util-linux \
        xxd \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

.devcontainer__ysap__features__bats-core__devcontainer-feature.json

{
    "name": "Bash Automated Testing System (By YSAP)",
    "id": "bats-core",
    "version": "0.0.1",
    "installsAfter": [
        "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/common-utils"
    ]
}

.devcontainer__ysap__features__bats-core__install.sh

#!/usr/bin/bash
#
# Our working directory is "/tmp/dev-container-features/bats-core_1". All files
# created in the working directory are cleaned up by the devcontainer build.

set -e

if [[ -z "$_REMOTE_USER_HOME" ]] && [[ -d "/home/${_REMOTE_USER}" ]]; then
    _REMOTE_USER_HOME="/home/${_REMOTE_USER}"
fi

declare prefix="${_REMOTE_USER_HOME}/.local"
declare tarball_url="$(curl -fsS "https://api.github.com/repos/bats-core/bats-core/releases/latest" | jq -r .tarball_url)"

curl --location --output bats-core.tar.gz "$tarball_url"
tar --strip-components=1 -xzf bats-core.tar.gz
su $_REMOTE_USER -c "./install.sh "$prefix" "

README.md

Devcontainers

A reproducible development environment built on top of docker containers.

Documentation References

• https://containers.dev
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/containers

Example - Configuration Only

In a file named .devcontainer/devcontainer.json:

{
    // Give a name to the "workspace"
    "name": "Debian",
    
    // Reference any docker image, this is a pre-configured image from microsoft specifically for devcontainers
    "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:1-bookworm",
    
    // The default user for the workspace, most microsoft images include a user named "vscode"
    "remoteUser": "vscode"
}

Of course there are more options. Lifecycle hooks. Building an image. Using a compose project. Adding features. A customizations field to configure tools.

Customizations

This is honestly mostly for Microsoft and Github tools. Is that really a bad thing?

Features

Features are the meta configuration of devcontainers. Allowing you to mix / merge / share configuration across many projects. A feature can do everything a devcontainer can and has a well defined hook into the build system: install.sh.

Example - Multiple Files

Please read the rest of the files in this gist. This example explores some of the more advanced features of devcontainers.

• Creating a custom user, this one is named "dave".
• Install the Github CLI as a feature.
• Creates a one-off feature for the bats-core project. This is NOT necessary. There's many ways to accomplish this.
• Builds a custom image starting at debian:bookworm-slim.
• If using vscode, installs extensions useful for bash editing.
• If using vscode, sets the default profile of the terminal to bash.

.devcontainer/
├── devcontainer.json
├── Dockerfile
└── ysap
    └── features
        └── bats-core
            ├── devcontainer-feature.json
            └── install.sh

Note, because gists do not support directories, files are using double underscore as separators. That is .devcontainer__devcontainer.json means .devcontainer/devcontainer.json.