An All-in-One DevContainer Environment for Rapid Development

Container maintained by Megabyte Labs

The Docker-based, DevContainer development environment for multi-language projects

Requirements
Contributing
- Affiliates
License

Requirements

Docker

Development Requirements

DockerSlim - Used for generating compact, secure images
jq - Used for interacting with JSON
Node.js (>=14.18) - Utilized to add development features like a pre-commit hook and maintenance tasks
Many more requirements that are dynamically installed as they are needed by our Taskfile.yml via our custom go-task/task fork named Bodega

If you choose to utilize the development tools provided by this project then at some point you will have to run bash start.sh (or npm i which calls bash start.sh after it is done). The start.sh script will attempt to automatically install any requirements (without sudo) that are not already present on your build system to the user's ~/.local/bin folder. The start.sh script also takes care of other tasks such as generating the documentation by calling tasks defined in the Taskfile.yml. For more details on how the optional requirements are used and set up, check out the CONTRIBUTING.md guide.

When you are ready to start development, run task --menu to open an interactive dialog that will help you understand what build commands we have already engineered for you.

Building the Docker Container

You may have a use case that requires some modifications to our Docker image. After you make changes to the Dockerfile, you can upload your custom container to Docker Hub using the following code:

export DOCKERHUB_USERNAME=Your_DockerHub_Username_Here
export DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD=Your_DockerHub_Password_Here
docker login -u "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME" -p "$DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD" docker.io
docker build --pull -t "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:latest" .
docker push "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:latest"

After setting your DockerHub username and password, the commands above will build the Docker image and upload it to Docker Hub where it will be publicly accessible. You can see this logic being implemented as a GitLab CI task here. This GitLab CI task works in conjunction with the .gitlab-ci.yml file in the root of this repository.

Building a Slim Container

Some of our repositories support creating a slim build via DockerSlim. According to DockerSlim's GitHub page, slimming down containers reduces the final image size and improves the security of the image by reducing the attack surface. It makes sense to create a slim build for anything that supports it, including Alpine images. On their GitHub page, they report that some images can be reduced in size by up to 448.76X. This means that if your image is naturally 700MB then it can be reduced to 1.56MB! It works by removing everything that is unnecessary in the container image.

As a convenience feature, we include a command defined in package.json that should build the slim image. Just run task docker:build after running npm i (or bash start.sh if you do not have Node.js installed) in the root of this repository to build both the latest and slim builds.

To build and publish a slim Dockerfile to Docker Hub manually, you can use the following as a starting point:

export DOCKERHUB_USERNAME=Your_DockerHub_Username_Here
export DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD=Your_DockerHub_Password_Here
docker login -u "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME" -p "$DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD" docker.io
docker build -t "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:latest" .
docker-slim build --tag $DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:slim {{#if (eq (typeOf dockerSlimCommand) "string")}}dockerSlimCommand}}{{/if{{#if (not (eq (typeOf dockerSlimCommand) "string"))}}dockerSlimCommand[slug]}}{{/if $DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:latest
docker push "$DOCKERHUB_USERNAME/devcontainer:slim"

It may be possible to modify the DockerSlim command above to fix an issue or reduce the footprint even more than our command. You can modify the slim build command inline in the package.json file under blueprint.dockerSlimCommand. Some of our repositories have multiple build targets in the Dockerfile so those repositories will have multiple dockerSlimCommands.

If you come up with an improvement, please do open a pull request. And again, make sure you replace DOCKERHUB_USERNAME and DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD in the snippet above with your Docker Hub username and password. The commands in the snippet above will build the slim Docker image and upload it to Docker Hub where it will be publicly accessible.

Build Tools

You might notice that we have a lot of extra files considering that this repository basically boils down to a single Dockerfile. These extra files are meant to make team development easier, predictable, and enjoyable. If you have a recent version of Node.js installed, you can get started using our build tools by running npm i (or by running bash start.sh if you do not currently have Node.js installed) in the root of this repository. After that, you can run task --list to see a list of the available development features. Alternatively, you can run task --menu to view an interactive menu that will guide you through the development process.

Note: We use a custom-built version of go-task/task so if you already have it installed then you should either replace it with our version or use a different bin name for task.

For more details, check out the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page. If you would like to contribute, please take a look at the contributing guide.

Sponsorship

Dear Awesome Person,

I create open source projects out of love. Although I have a job, shelter, and as much fast food as I can handle, it would still be pretty cool to be appreciated by the community for something I have spent a lot of time and money on. Please consider sponsoring me! Who knows? Maybe I will be able to quit my job and publish open source full time.

Sincerely,

Brian Zalewski