Awesome Dev Containers

A curated list of awesome tools and resources about dev containers for common programming languages
and technology stacks to boost your developer productivity 🚀

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Contents

• Tools
• Articles
• Tutorials
• Videos
• Samples
  • C/C++
  • Go
  • Java
  • .NET
  • Node.js
  • PHP
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • Rust
  • Misc
• AI
  • AI devcontainers
  • AI stack recipes
• Website

Tools

• Ivy Tendril - Open-source agentic software factory with an amazing UI that handles parallel Git worktrees for you, complete with programmatic verifications and fast review loops.
• VS Code Remote Development - An extension pack that lets you open any folder in a container, on a remote machine, or in WSL and take advantage of VS Code's full feature set.
• Unofficial devcontainer CLI - An experimental CLI to improve the experience of working with Visual Studio Code dev containers.
• devcontainer-build-run - A GitHub action and Azure DevOps task aimed at making it easier to re-use a Visual Studio Code devcontainer in a GitHub workflow or Azure DevOps pipeline.
• vscli - A CLI/TUI which makes it easy to launch vscode projects from the terminal, with a focus on dev containers. Also supports projects with multiple dev containers.
• tyedev - Improve Devcontainer Creation - An interactive experience for the creation of a devcontainer. Provides ability to search for features and templates. And more!
• Pieces — An on-device copilot that helps you capture, enrich, and reuse code, streamline collaboration, and solve complex problems through a contextual understanding of your workflow.
• crib - A lean devcontainer runner that shells out to Docker/Podman. Single binary, no SSH, just docker exec, with experimental support for plugins.
• KubeStellar Console - Multi-cluster Kubernetes dashboard with AI-powered operations, real-time observability, and CNCF project integrations across edge and cloud clusters.
• aicontainer - A CLI that drops a sandboxed dev container into any project for running AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex) in auto-approve mode, with filesystem isolation, a filtered Docker socket, and an opt-in outbound firewall.
• mirabilis - One-command launcher that runs Claude Code fully autonomously in an isolated Docker dev container — cross-platform (macOS/Linux/WSL2), with a terminal UI and persistent agent memory.
• Devsy | devsy.sh - Accelerate engineering velocity with Devsy, a workspace management tool for deploying devcontainers on Docker, Kubernetes, cloud providers (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure, and more), and SSH remote hosts.
• decolint - A linter for Dev Container definitions, Features, and Templates, with checks for correctness, security, and reproducibility.
• devcontainer-devops - A DevOps and Infrastructure-as-Code dev container (Terraform, Terragrunt, Azure CLI, Ansible, Kubernetes, PowerShell, .NET) with a ws command that opens several repositories as roots of one multi-root workspace in a single container.

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Articles

• Developing inside a Container - Visual Studio Code Remote Containers official documentation.
• Your open source project needs a dev container. Here is why - Dev containers are awesome, we can use them to define an isolated development environment within Docker that has all that we need, and only what we need, installed in it.
• Instantly set up a new dev environment using containers and VS Code - Discover how to get started in seconds on a new project, isolate all your dev environments and share them with your teammates using VS Code dev containers.
• Development Containers in Education: A Guide for Instructors - Development containers with Visual Studio Code can serve as a fantastic tool in education to ensure students have a consistent coding environment. They take care of setup so that students and instructors can quickly move past configuration, and instead focus on what's truly important: learning and coding something great!
• Using Remote Containers in WSL 2 - See how you can use remote containers in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2).
• Advanced tips from Microsoft's CSE team for Dev Containers - A list of tips to enhance your Dev Containers to support Apple M1, include various tooling and customizations.

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Tutorials

• Use a Docker container as a development environment with Visual Studio Code - Get, create, and configure a container-based development environment with the Visual Studio Code Remote - Containers extension.
• Dev Containers from Beginner to Advanced - A free, self-paced course in three levels — from opening your first Dev Container to designing multi-service setups, mirroring pre-commit hooks in CI, and auditing supply-chain risk. No sign-up required.

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Videos

• GitHub Codespaces - A Game Changer - In this demo, Alvaro Videla makes the RabbitMQ tutorials "Codespaces ready" and ran them directly from the browser without the need to install RabbitMQ or Node.js.
• Remote Development with Visual Studio Code - In this session, Brigit Murtaugh demos how to use the VS Code Remote extensions to connect to remote environments and build and deploy applications using the same, familiar Visual Studio Code you already know locally.
• A clean dev env, working every time, everywhere - In this session, Yohan Lasorsa demos how to isolate each of your projects' environment, and share it with your teammates to quickly onboard newcomers.
• Beginner's Series to: Dev Containers - A series of videos about dev containers in Visual Studio Code! We'll show you how to get, create, and configure a container-based development environment with the VS Code Remote - Containers extension.
• Visual Studio Code Development Containers: A Guide for Students - In this video, check out how you can get started with a VS Code dev container in just 5 minutes as a student.

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Samples

C/C++

• Try Out Development Containers: C++ - C++ sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• C++ image - Develop C++ applications on Linux. Includes Debian C++ build tools (maintained by Microsoft).

Go

• Go Dev Container - Ultimate Go development container for Visual Studio Code.
• Try Out Development Containers: Go - Go sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• Go image - Develop Go based applications. Includes appropriate runtime args, Go, common tools, extensions, and dependencies (maintained by Microsoft).

Java

• Try Out Development Containers: Java - Java sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• Java image - Develop Java applications. Includes the JDK and Java extensions (maintained by Microsoft).

.NET

• Try Out Development Containers: .NET Core - .NET Core sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• .NET image - Develop C# and .NET based applications. Includes all needed SDKs, extensions, and dependencies (maintained by Microsoft).

Node.js

• Try Out Development Containers: Node.js - Node.js sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• Node.js image w/ JavaScript - Develop Node.js based applications. Includes Node.js, eslint, nvm, and yarn (maintained by Microsoft).
• Node.js image w/ TypeScript - Develop Node.js based applications in TypeScript. Includes Node.js, eslint, nvm, yarn, and the TypeScript compiler (maintained by Microsoft).

PHP

• Try Out Development Containers: PHP - PHP sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• PHP image - Develop PHP based applications. Includes needed tools, extensions, and dependencies (maintained by Microsoft).

Python

• Try Out Development Containers: Python - Python sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• Python image - Develop Python 3 applications (maintained by Microsoft).
• Python Project Template: A Dev Container with support for black, isort, ruff, pre-commit, pytest
• SQLAlchemy SQLIte Playground: Dev Container with SQLAlchemy package, SQLTools extension
• PostgreSQL playground: Similar to the SQLite playground, but includes local PostgreSQL setup in Dev Container
• PostgreSQL + pgvector playground: Dev Container with PostgreSQL, pgvector extension, and multiple pgvector Python examples
• python 3.10 playground: A simple 3.10 Dev Container
• python 3.11 playground: A simple 3.11 Dev Container
• python 3.12 playground: A simple 3.12 Dev Container

Ruby

• Try Out Development Containers: Ruby - Ruby sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).

Rust

• Try Out Development Containers: Rust - Rust sample project for trying out the VS Code Remote - Containers extension (maintained by Microsoft).
• Rust image - Develop Rust based applications. Includes appropriate runtime args and everything you need to get up and running (maintained by Microsoft).

Misc

• ROS dev container for VS Code - A preconfigured docker image for ROS (Robot Operating System) development. Preconfigured code completion for C++, Python, XML (package.xml, launchfiles, URDF, SDF). Preconfigured simulation environments (Flatland, TurtleBot3, ARIAC, Virtual RobotX, UUV).

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AI

Development environments for AI applications, agents, data science, and model development. Existing devcontainers are listed separately from suggested stacks that need a custom configuration.

AI devcontainers

• Generative AI for Beginners - Microsoft's devcontainer for learning LLM application development with Python, Jupyter notebooks, model APIs, and course dependencies.
• AI Agents for Beginners - Microsoft's agent-development course environment with Python, Node.js, .NET, and notebook support. Includes Microsoft Agent Framework and MCP SDK dependencies for agent and tool-calling examples.
• Jupyter Data Science Notebooks - Community devcontainer template based on Jupyter Docker Stacks, with selectable base images for dataset exploration, preprocessing, visualization, and machine learning.
• Data Science with Python and R - Microsoft's Python, R, and Jupyter development environment for statistics and notebook-based experimentation. The published image is documented as x86-64.
• PyTorch CPU/CUDA Devcontainers - PyTorch's CPU and CUDA development configurations for building, debugging, and contributing to PyTorch itself, rather than a lightweight model-training starter. CUDA usage requires compatible NVIDIA hardware, drivers, and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit.

For embeddings, semantic search, and PostgreSQL-backed retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), see the PostgreSQL + pgvector playground in the Python samples.

AI stack recipes

These are suggested combinations of tools, not ready-made devcontainer templates. Each link points to upstream documentation for building a custom environment. Use Docker Compose to keep databases and inference services separate from the development workspace.

• TypeScript AI App (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: Node.js, TypeScript, pnpm, and AI SDK for streaming chat, structured outputs, and tool-calling applications. Hosted model APIs do not require a local GPU.
• MCP Development Lab (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: a Python or TypeScript Model Context Protocol SDK, Node.js, and MCP Inspector for creating and debugging servers, tools, resources, and prompts.
• Local LLM with Ollama (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: a Python or Node.js workspace, an Ollama service container, and persistent model storage for local inference on CPU or supported GPUs. For GPU acceleration on macOS, run Ollama on the host rather than inside Docker Desktop.
• Hugging Face Fine-Tuning (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: PyTorch, Transformers, Datasets, Accelerate, and PEFT, optionally with TRL, for reproducible fine-tuning and LoRA experiments. A compatible GPU is recommended for practical LLM workloads.
• vLLM Inference Lab (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: a Python development workspace, a vLLM service, and client benchmarks for OpenAI-compatible model serving, batching, and throughput experiments. Choose the service image and runtime configuration for the host's supported hardware.
• LLM Evaluation Lab (stack recipe) - Suggested stack: Node.js, Python, promptfoo, and versioned evaluation datasets for comparing prompts and models, checking outputs, and catching quality regressions in CI. Hosted model evaluation does not require a local GPU.

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Website

The website turns this list into a searchable collection with category and language filters, light and dark themes, and a quick-start guide. This README remains the source of truth: add or update resources here, and the next build includes them automatically.

The Midnight & Amber palette pairs navy surfaces with ivory text in dark mode, and warm ivory surfaces with navy text in light mode. The header theme toggle remembers your choice locally; first-time visitors follow their system preference. Use ?scoutTheme=light or ?scoutTheme=dark to preview a specific mode.

Local development

Use Node.js 22 or newer. No dependencies need to be installed.

npm run dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:4173/awesome-devcontainers/. Edit the files in website/ or this README, run npm run build, and refresh the page. Set PORT to use a different local port.

npm test
npm run build

The build produces dist/index.html, a self-contained static page with all resources, styles, icons, and scripts included. Resources remain readable without JavaScript. No analytics or third-party fonts are used. The header optionally fetches this repository's star count from the public GitHub API, without a token. This is the only runtime network request; it does not block the collection. If it fails or takes longer than five seconds, the count stays hidden and the GitHub link remains available.

GitHub Pages

In the repository's Settings > Pages > Build and deployment, select GitHub Actions as the source. The workflow in .github/workflows/pages.yml builds and deploys the site when relevant changes reach main. Pull requests build and test the site without deploying it. You can also run the workflow manually from the Actions tab on main.

The published URL will be https://manekinekko.github.io/awesome-devcontainers/. All local navigation is relative, so the site also supports a custom domain. Only dist/ is uploaded to Pages.