Introduction

This repo allows the user to quickly spin up a vscode-devcontainer-based development environment to be used as a playground or as a project starter. It copies a project template from the templates directory to the projects directory and then opens the project in a vscode devcontainer. If the project already exists, it just opens it in a vscode devcontainer, without making any changes.

Prerequisites

Mandatory

• Git
• Docker

Optional (recommended for the full experience)

• VSCode
• VSCode Remote Containers extension

Usage

Clone this repo.

Start playground

Linux (remote session, or WSL)

Link the script to your path. Recommended to add it to your ~/.bashrc:

ln -s ./play.sh ~/bin/play

Run the script:

play [-t <template name>] [<project-name>]

• -t <template name>: optional, which project template to use. Defaults to go-dev.
• <project-name>: optional, name of the project. Defaults to go-playground.

• If running on a remote machine, after the new VScode session will open, run Dev Containers: Rebuild and Reopen in Container.
• If running on a local machine, set the variable PLAYGROUND_LOCAL to true before running the script, and it should open the devcontainer automatically.

Windows

Source the script in a powershell session. Recommended to import it in your $PROFILE:

. ./play.ps1

or

Import-Module -Force "./play.ps1"

Run the playground:

play [-template_name <template name>] [<project-name>]

or

play [-template_name <template name>] [-project_name <project-name>]

• -template_name <template name>: optional, which project template to use. Defaults to go-dev. Hit tab for auto-completion.
• -project_name <project-name>: optional, name of the project. Defaults to go-playground. Hit tab for auto-completion.

Templates

Templates are stored in the templates directory. Each template is a directory containing the following:

• .devcontainer directory containing:
  • devcontainer.json file - used by vscode to configure the devcontainer. Mandatory.
  • Dockerfile and docker-compose.yaml files - used to build and run the devcontainer image.
  • init.sh script - used to initialize the project. Optional. For example, for go-dev template, it creates a go.mod file.
  • .bashrc file - used to customize the bash shell. Optional, but recommended for your preference.
  • The project name is embedded in docker-compose.yaml as <PROJECT_NAME> and is replaced by the script. Optional.
• Any additional start-up source code. For example, for go-dev template, the main.go file is used to start the project, and it's inside the cmd subdirectory.

Customization

You can customize the templates to your liking. Some examples:

• Add a Makefile to your template, and add a make command to the init.sh script to run it.
• Customize the default VSCode extensions installed in the devcontainer by editing the devcontainer.json file.
• Customize the VSCode settings that will be used in the devcontainer by editing the devcontainer.json file.
• Customize the devcontainer image by editing the Dockerfile and docker-compose.yaml files.
• Set a different shell instead of bash by changing the SHELL environment variable in the docker-compose.yaml file. Make sure it's installed first by adding it to the Dockerfile.
• Enhance an existing template, or create a new one. For example, you can create a go-dev-cobra template that uses the go-dev template as a base, and adds the cobra package to it, and the relevant code to the main.go file (or any other files you may feel are relevant). Alternatively create a python-dev template, or a node-dev template, or any other template you may need.