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Dev Container Specification

The purpose of the Development Container Specification is to provide a way to enrich containers with the content and metadata necessary to enable development inside them. These container environments should be easy to use, create, and recreate.

A development container is a container in which a user can develop an application. Tools that want to implement this specification should provide a set of features/commands that give more flexibility to users and allow development containers to scale to large development groups.

An environment is defined as a logical instance of one or more development containers, along with any needed side-car containers. An environment is based on one set of metadata that can be managed as a single unit. Users can create multiple environments from the same configuration metadata for different purposes.

Metadata

Development containers allow one to define a repeatable development environment for a user or team of developers that includes the execution environment the application needs. A development container defines an environment in which you develop your application before you are ready to deploy. While deployment and development containers may resemble one another, you may not want to include tools in a deployment image that you use during development and you may need to use different secrets or other settings.

Furthermore, working inside a development container can require additional metadata to drive tooling or service experiences than you would normally need with a production container. Providing a structured and consistent form for this metadata is a core part of this specification.

devcontainer.json

While the structure of this metadata is critical, it is also important to call out how this data can be represented on disk where appropriate. While other representations may be added over time, metadata can be stored in a JSON with Comments file called devcontainer.json today. Products using it should expect to find a devcontainer.json file in one or more of the following locations (in order of precedence):

  • .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
  • .devcontainer.json
  • .devcontainer/<folder>/devcontainer.json (where <folder> is a sub-folder, one level deep)

It is valid that these files may exist in more than one location, so consider providing a mechanism for users to select one when appropriate.

Image Metadata

Certain dev container metadata properties can be stored in an image label as an array of metadata snippets. This allows them to be stored in prebuilt images, such that, the image and its related configuration are self-contained. These contents should then be merged with any local devcontainer.json file contents at the time the container is created. An array is used so subsequent image builds can simply append changes to the array rather than attempting to merge at that point - which improves compatibility with arbitrary image build systems.

Metadata should be representative of with the following structure, using one entry per Dev Container Feature and devcontainer.json (see table below for the full list):

[
	{
		"id"?: string,
		"init"?: boolean,
		"privileged"?: boolean,
		"capAdd"?: string[],
		"securityOpt"?: string[],
		"entrypoint"?: string,
		"mounts"?: [],
		...
		"customizations"?: {
			...
		}
	},
	...
]

To simplify adding this metadata for other tools, we also support having a single top-level object with the same properties.

The metadata is added to the image as a devcontainer.metadata label with a JSON string value representing the above array or single object.

Merge Logic

To apply the metadata together with a user's devcontainer.json at runtime the following merge logic by property is used. The table also notes which properties are currently supported coming from the devcontainer.json and which from the Feature metadata, this will change over time as we add more properties.

Property Type/Format Merge Logic devcontainer.json devcontainer-feature.json
id E.g., ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/node:1 Not merged. ✓
init boolean true if at least one is true, false otherwise. ✓ ✓
privileged boolean true if at least one is true, false otherwise. ✓ ✓
capAdd string[] Union of all capAdd arrays without duplicates. ✓ ✓
securityOpt string[] Union of all securityOpt arrays without duplicates. ✓ ✓
entrypoint string Collected list of all entrypoints. ✓
mounts (string | { type, src, dst })[] Collected list of all mountpoints. Conflicts: Last source wins. ✓ ✓
onCreateCommand string | string[] | {[key: string]: string | string[]} Collected list of all onCreateCommands. ✓ ✓
updateContentCommand string | string[] | {[key: string]: string | string[]} Collected list of all updateContentCommands. ✓ ✓
postCreateCommand string | string[] | {[key: string]: string | string[]} Collected list of all postCreateCommands. ✓ ✓
postStartCommand string | string[] | {[key: string]: string | string[]} Collected list of all postStartCommands. ✓ ✓
postAttachCommand string | string[] | {[key: string]: string | string[]} Collected list of all postAttachCommands. ✓ ✓
waitFor enum Last value wins. ✓
customizations Object of tool-specific customizations. Merging is left to the tools. ✓ ✓
containerUser string Last value wins. ✓
remoteUser string Last value wins. ✓
userEnvProbe string (enum) Last value wins. ✓
remoteEnv Object of strings. Per variable, last value wins. ✓
containerEnv Object of strings. Per variable, last value wins. ✓
overrideCommand boolean Last value wins. ✓
portsAttributes Map of ports to attributes. Per port (not per port attribute), last value wins. ✓
otherPortsAttributes Port attributes. Last value wins (not per port attribute). ✓
forwardPorts (number | string)[] Union of all ports without duplicates. Last one wins (when mapping changes). ✓
shutdownAction string (enum) Last value wins. ✓
updateRemoteUserUID boolean Last value wins. ✓
hostRequirements cpus, memory, storage, gpu Max value wins. ✓

Variables in string values will be substituted at the time the value is applied. When the order matters, the devcontainer.json is considered last.

Notes

  • Passing the label as a LABEL instruction in the Dockerfile:
    • The size limit on Dockerfiles is around 1.3MB. The line length is limited to 65k characters.
    • Using one line per Feature should allow for making full use of these limits.
  • Passing the label as a command line argument:
    • There is no size limit documented for labels, but the daemon returns an error when the request header is >500kb.
    • The 500kb limit is shared, so we cannot use a second label in the same build to avoid it.
    • If/when this becomes an issue we could embed the metadata as a file in the image (e.g., with a label indicating it).

Orchestration options

A core principle of this specification is to seek to enrich existing container orchestrator formats with development container metadata where appropriate rather than replacing them. As a result, the metadata schema includes a set of optional properties for interoperating with different orchestrators. Today, the specification includes scenario-specific properties for working without a container orchestrator (by directly referencing an image or Dockerfile) and for using Docker Compose as a simple multi-container orchestrator. At the same time, this specification leaves space for further development and implementation of other orchestrator mechanisms and file formats.

The following section describes the differences between those that are supported now.

Image based

Image based configurations only reference an image that should be reachable and downloadable through docker pull commands. Logins and tokens required for these operations are execution environment specific. The only required parameter is image. The details are here.

Dockerfile based

These configurations are defined as using a Dockerfile to define the starting point of the development containers. As with image based configurations, it is assumed that any base images are already reachable by Docker when performing a docker build command. The only required parameter in this case is the relative reference to the Dockerfile in build.dockerfile. The details are here.

There are multiple properties that allow users to control how docker build works:

  • build.context
  • build.args
  • build.options
  • build.target
  • build.cacheFrom

Docker Compose based

Docker Compose configurations use docker-compose (which may be Docker Compose V1 or aliased Docker Compose V2) to create and manage a set of containers required for an application. As with the other configurations, any images required for this operation are assumed to be reachable. The required parameters are:

  • dockerComposeFile: the reference to the Docker Compose file(s) to be used.
  • service: declares the main container that will be used for all other operations. Tools are assumed to also use this parameter to connect to the development container, although they can provide facilities to connect to the other containers as required by the user.
  • runServices: an optional property that indicates the set of services in the docker-compose configuration that should be started or stopped with the environment.

It is important to note that image and dockerfile properties are not needed since Docker Compose supports them natively in the format.

Other options

In addition to the configuration options explained above, there are other settings that apply when creating development containers to facilitate their use by developers.

A complete list of available metadata properties and their purposes can be found in the devcontainer.json reference. However, we will describe the critical ones below in more detail.

Environment Variables

Environment variables can be set at different points in the dev container lifecycle. With this in mind, development containers support two classes of environment variables:

  • Container: These variables are part of the container when it is created and are available at all points in its lifecycle. This concept is native to containers and can be set in the container image itself, using containerEnv for image and Dockerfile scenarios or using orchestrator specific properties like env in Docker Compose files.
  • Remote: These variables should be set by a development container supporting tool as part of configuring its runtime environment. Users can set these using the remoteEnv property and implementing tools or services may add their own for specific scenarios (e.g., secrets). These variables can change during the lifetime of the container, and are added after the container's ENTRYPOINT has fired.

The reason for this separation is it allows for the use of information not available at image build time and simplifies updating the environment for project/repository specific needs without modifying an image. With this in in mind, it's important to note that implementing tools should also support the dynamic variable syntax described in the metadata reference document.

Another notable and important environment variable related property is userEnvProbe. Implementing tools should use this property to "probe" for expected environment variables using the specified type of shell. However, it does not specify that this type of shell needs to be used for all sub-processes (given the performance impact). Instead, "probed" environment variables should be merged with Remote environment variables for any processes the implementer injects after the container is created. This allows implementors to emulate developer expected behaviors around values added to their profile and rc files.

Mounts

Mounts allow containers to have access to the underlying machine, share data between containers and to persist information between development containers.

A default mount should be included so that the source code is accessible from inside the container. Source code is stored outside of the container so that a developer's in-flight edits can be extracted, or a new container created in the event a container no longer starts.

While this "workspace mount" is often a "bind" mount, this is not a requirement of this specification. It is also important to note that these mounts may be "bind" mounts that connect to the underlying filesystem and thus cloud environments might not have access to the same data as a local machine.

Inside the container this mount defaults to /workspace.

workspaceFolder and workspaceMount

The default mount point for the source code can be set with the workspaceMount property for image and dockerfile scenarios or using the built in mounts property in Docker Compose files. This folder should point to the root of a repository (where the .git folder is found) so that source control operations work correctly inside the container.

The workspaceFolder can then be set to the default folder inside the container that should used in the container. Typically this is either the mount point in the container, or a sub-folder under it. Allowing a sub-folder to be used is particularly important for monorepos given you need the .git folder to interact with source control but developers are typically are interacting with a specific sub-project within the overall repository.

See workspaceMount and workspaceFolder for reference.

Users

Users control the permissions of applications executed in the containers, allowing the developer to control them. The specification takes into account two types of user definitions:

  • Container User: The user that will be used for all operations that run inside a container. This concept is native to containers. It may be set in the container image, using the containerUser property for image and dockerfile scenarios, or using an orchestratric specific property like user property in Docker Compose files.
  • Remote User: Used to run the lifecycle scripts inside the container. This is also the user tools and editors that connect to the container should use to run their processes. This concept is not native to containers. Set using the remoteEnv property in all cases and defaults to the container user.

This separation allows the ENTRYPOINT for the image to execute with different permissions than the developer and allows for developers to switch users without recreating their containers.

Lifecycle

A development environment goes through different lifecycle events during its use in the outer and inner loop of development.

  • Configuration Validation
  • Environment Creation
  • Environment Stop
  • Environment Resume

Configuration Validation

The exact steps required to validate configuration can vary based on exactly where the development container metadata is persisted. However, when considering a devcontainer.json file, the following validation should occur:

  1. Validate that a workspace source folder has been provided. It is up to the implementing tool to determine what to do if no source folder is provided.
  2. Search for a devcontainer.json file in one of the locations above in the workspace source folder.
  3. If no devcontainer.json is found, it is up to the implementing tool or service to determine what to do. This specification does not dictate this behavior.
  4. Validate that the metadata (for example devcontainer.json) contains all parameters required for the selected configuration type.

Environment Creation

The creation process goes through the steps necesarry to go from the user configuration to a working environment that is ready to be used.

Initialization

During this step, the following is executed:

  • Validate access to the container orchestrator specified by the configuration.
  • Execution of initializeCommand.

Image creation

The first part of environment creation is generating the final image(s) that the development containers are going to use. This step is orchestrator dependent and can consist of just pulling a Docker image, running Docker build, or docker-compose build. Additionally, this step is useful on its own since it permits the creation of intermediate images that can be uploaded and used by other users, thus cutting down on creation time. It is encouraged that tools implementing this specification give access to a command that just executes this step.

This step executes the following tasks:

  1. Configuration Validation
  2. Pull/build/execute of the defined container orchestration format to create images.
  3. Validate the result of these operations.

Container Creation

After image creation, containers are created based on that image and setup.

This step executes the following tasks:

  1. [Optional] Perform any required user UID/GID sync'ing (more next)
  2. Create the container(s) based on the properties specified above.
  3. Validate the container(s) were created successfully.

Note that container mounts, environment variables, and user configuration should be applied at this point. However, remote user and environment variable configuration should not be.

UID/GID sync'ing is an optional task for Linux (only) and that executes if the updateRemoteUserUID property is set to true and a containerUser or remoteUser is specified. In this case, an image update should be made prior to creating the container to set the specified user's UID and GID to match the current local user’s UID/GID to avoid permission problems with bind mounts. Implementations may skip this task if they do not use bind mounts on Linux, or use a container engine that does this translation automatically.

Post Container Creation

At the end of the container creation step, a set of commands are executed inside the main container:

  • onCreateCommand, updateContentCommand and postCreateCommand. This set of commands is executed in sequence on a container the first time it's created and depending on the creation parameters received. You can learn more in the documentation on lifecycle scripts. By default, postCreateCommand is executed in the background after reporting the successful creation of the development environment.
  • If the waitFor property is defined, then execution should block until all commands in the sequence up to the specified property have executed. This property defaults to updateContentCommand.

Remote environment variables and user configuration should be applied to all created processes in the container (inclusive of userEnvProbe).

Implementation specific steps

After these steps have been executed, any implementation specific commands can safely execute. Specifically, any processes required by the implementation to support other properties in this specification should be started at this point. These may occur in parallel to any non-blocking, background post-container creation commands (as dictated by the waitFor property).

Any user facing processes should have remote environment variables and user configuration applied (inclusive of userEnvProbe).

For example, in the CLI reference implementation, this is the point in which anything executed with devcontainer exec would run.

Typically, this is also the step where implementors would apply config or settings from the customizations section of the dev container metadata (e.g., VS Code installs extensions based on the customizations.vscode.extensions property). Examples of these can be found in the supporting tools section reference. However, applying these at this point is not strictly required or mandated by this specification.

Once these final steps have occurred, implementing tools or services may connect to the environment as they see fit.

Environment Stop

The intention of this step is to ensure all containers are stopped correctly based on the appropriate orchestrator specific steps to ensure no data is lost. It is up to the implementing tool or service to determine when this event should happen.

Environment Resume

While it is not a strict requirement to keep a development container after it has been stopped, this is the most common scenario.

To resume the environment from a stopped state:

  1. Restart all related containers.
  2. Follow the appropriate implementation specific steps.
  3. Additionally, execute the postStartCommand and postAttachCommand in the container.

Like during the create process, remote environment variables and user configuration should be applied to all created processes in the container (inclusive of userEnvProbe).

Parallel lifecycle script execution

Dev containers support a single command for each of its lifecycle scripts. While serial execution of multiple commands can be achieved with ;, &&, etc., parallel execution deserves first-class support.

All lifecycle scripts have been extended to support object types. The key of the object will be a unique name for the command and the value will be the string or array command. Each command must exit successfully for the stage to be considered successful.

Each entry in the object will be run in parallel during that lifecycle step.

Example

{
  "postCreateCommand": {
    "server": "npm start",
    "db": ["mysql", "-u", "root", "-p", "my database"]
  }
}

Definitions

Project Workspace Folder

The project workspace folder is where an implementing tool should begin to search for devcontainer.json files. If the target project on disk is using git, the project workspace folder is typically the root of the git repository.