dev

A devcontainer management CLI built in Rust. Create, build, run, and manage devcontainers from the terminal — no VS Code required.

Features

• Multiple container runtimes — Docker, Podman, and Apple Containers (macOS native via XPC)
• Template system — scaffold .devcontainer/ configs from the devcontainer template registry or saved global templates
• Feature support — browse, install, and manage devcontainer features with OCI registry integration
• BuildKit support — optional BuildKit-optimized image builds
• Layered configuration — base config, global templates, and per-workspace overrides
• VS Code integration — open running containers in VS Code or VS Code Insiders

Installation

cargo install devcontainer

Or from source:

cargo install --path .

Usage

# Scaffold a minimal .devcontainer/ in the current directory
dev init

# Create from a template (interactive picker or by ID)
dev new
dev new --template ghcr.io/devcontainers/templates/rust

# Build the devcontainer image
dev build
dev build --buildkit --no-cache

# Start the container
dev up
dev up --rebuild

# Run a command or open a shell
dev exec -- cargo test
dev shell

# Stop or remove
dev down
dev down --remove

# Open in VS Code
dev open
dev open --insiders

# Check container state
dev status
dev status --json

# Browse templates and features
dev list templates
dev list features -q rust

# Edit devcontainer config properties
dev config set image mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/rust:latest
dev config add features ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/node:1
dev config list

# Manage global templates
dev global new --name my-rust
dev global list
dev global edit my-rust
dev global remove my-rust

# Manage base config (applied to all containers)
dev base edit
dev base config set remoteUser vscode

Global flags

Building from source

cargo build --release

The binary will be at target/release/dev.

Note: The apple-container crate (Apple Containers runtime) is only compiled on macOS.

License

See LICENSE.