A simple example of a .NET 5.0 container development environment for VSCode with a related SQL Server 2019 container

Download and unpack or git clone this repo to a folder of your choosing.

Ctrl-Shift-P (or F1) and then Remote Containers: Open Folder in Container... choosing the folder where you unpacked or cloned this repo.

The files of interest are in the .devcontainer folder:

• devcontainer.json: VSCode's container configuration for the development environment (the container within which VSCode will run). See Microsoft's devcontainer.json reference for more details. Most importanly, this file includes the VSCode extensions that should be installed in the container.
• docker-compose.yml: a standard docker-compose file for configuring one or multiple containers, designating images, Dockerfiles, etc. See the docker-compose file reference for more details.
• Dockerfile: defines a base image and customizations for the development container. See the Dockerfile reference for more details.
• dev-setup.sh: a Bash script called by the Dockerfile that installs and configures packages in the development container.

Please note that all of the above only engage the development container. You may also want to build a container image for testing and deployment as part of the project. See ASP.NET Core in a Container for an example, although, given the above, you would not need to install .NET or C# locally, as it is already in the development container. The development container builds, and the application contain is built.

To begin building an ASP.NET app, for instance, you might try:

• Launch the VSCode terminal (Ctrl-Shift-`), then dotnet new webapi --no-https
• In VSCode, Ctrl-Shift-P then .NET: Generate Assets for Build and Debug
• For some reason, I needed to restart VSCode after the above.
• In VSCode, Ctrl-Shift-P then Docker: Add Docker Files to Workspace..., then .NET: ASP.NET Core, then Linux, then 5000. I select Yes to generate the Docker Compose files, but this is not necessary if you only need a Dockerfile.

For a decent introduction to developing inside a container with VSCode, see this article.

Please open an issue to suggest changes.