The code and data behind xeiaso.net
feat(notes): experiment with dev containers
Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@xeiaso.net>
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.devcontainer/Dockerfile
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FROM ghcr.io/xe/devcontainer-base/pre/go
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FROM alpine:3.21 AS dhall-json
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ARG DHALL_VERSION=1.42.2
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ARG DHALL_JSON_VERSION=1.7.12
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RUN mkdir -p /app
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WORKDIR /app
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RUN set -x \
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&& apk add -U curl bzip2 ca-certificates \
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&& curl -L -o dhall-linux.tar.bz2 https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-haskell/releases/download/${DHALL_VERSION}/dhall-json-${DHALL_JSON_VERSION}-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2 \
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&& tar -xvjf dhall-linux.tar.bz2 \
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&& mv bin/dhall-to-json .
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FROM ghcr.io/xe/devcontainer-base/pre/go
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COPY --from=dhall-json /app/dhall-to-json /usr/local/bin/dhall-to-json
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lume/src/notes/2025/devcontainers.mdx
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lume/src/notes/2025/devcontainers.mdx
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---
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title: "Experimenting with Development containers"
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desc: "Development containers are cool and I want to see if they work out in practice."
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date: 2025-06-30
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---
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A few years ago I was introduced to the idea of [Development containers](https://containers.dev/) by a former coworker. I was deep into the Nix koolaid at the time, so I thought they were kinda superfluous and ultimately not worth looking into. After having run a [fairly popular open source project](https://github.com/TecharoHQ/anubis) for a while, I've come to realize that setting up a development environment for it is actually a fair bit harder than it seems. I want to make it easy to contribute to the project, and one of the best ways I can do that is by lowering the skill floor for contribution.
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As such, I'm starting to experiment with development containers across my projects. I wrote this article from inside a development container on my Macbook. If you want to play around with my development environment Techaro's package builder yeet, you can [clone its repo from GitHub](https://github.com/TecharoHQ/yeet) and activate the development container. You will get a known working configuration that you can use to build new and exciting things.
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Notably, these development containers also allow you to use [GitHub Codespaces](https://github.com/features/codespaces) to contribute. This means you don't even need to have a machine that's able to run Linux containers. You can contribute from any machine that can run GitHub Codespaces.
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This is still an experiment, and here are the criteria I'm using to determine if this will be a success or not:
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1. Can people that don't really understand much about the stack behind projects clone a repo and get the software to build or run?
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2. Does this help lower the skill floor to make it easier to contribute to those projects?
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3. Will this finally get Anubis' integration tests to run consistently across OSes?
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The main reason I was inspired to try this out was after I heard a YouTuber describe what AI assisted code editing felt like for new developers: it feels like being a senior developer where you just have things flow out of your hands and you're able to make new and exciting things. I think the Techaro way of giving people that kind of experience to someone would be letting you get the development environment of a senior developer, akin to what it feels like to use an expert mechanic's garage to fix your car. When you clone the repos I'm testing with, you get a version of the configuration that I use, modulo the parts that don't make the most sense for running inside containers.
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I'm super excited to see how this turns out. Maybe it'll be a good thing, maybe it won't. Only one way to know for sure!