Utilizing dev containers
When you’re utilizing dev containers as a part of your commonplace toolchain, you may create a library of options that may be shortly added to your container definitions. You may customise off-the-shelf containers or shortly construct a brand new definition for a brand new venture, treating options as constructing blocks that sit on prime of an ordinary base container that’s been outlined for a selected stack.
The essential technique of constructing a dev container makes plenty of sense. It’s a top-down method, which wants to begin with architects and dev leads agreeing on a venture stack. You may then discover a base platform picture, say .Internet, within the VS Code container gallery. Upon getting that, you customise it on your venture, including new instruments by enhancing the devcontainer.json in VS Code and by including predefined options. As soon as the container is able to use, deploy it and the required VS Code instruments to your improvement group.
Your native container host must be working Docker or no less than have a Docker-compliant CLI on prime of its engine. The CLI is essential right here, because the dev container works via it somewhat than needing direct entry to your container host. That’s each a profit and a disadvantage: There’s no dependency on APIs and even on Docker itself. So long as a container surroundings helps the Docker CLI, you need to use it along with your dev containers. Nevertheless, if it doesn’t, you may’t. Which means there are points with different container engines, resembling Podman, which solely help a subset of the Docker CLI. After all, as dev containers is an open supply venture, there’s ongoing work to help different container engines, and you can also make requests or submit code by way of GitHub.
