microsoft / microsoft/vscode-remote-release

Allow extensions to be decoupled from devcontainer.json

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#5,422 3 comments 12 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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containers feature-request
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Dockerfile
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

It would be useful to allow users to specify a list of extensions in a separate file besides devcontainer.json.

For example if devcontainer.json allowed you to specific a devcontainer-extensions.json file or automatically looked for said file. This would allow users to leverage the same devcontainer.json in a git repo, add devcontainer-extensions.json to a gitignore file so that each user could include their own VS Code extensions in the devcontainer.

As always I appreciate the community and Microsoft effort here!

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing how extensions are read from devcontainer.json and consider the proposed devcontainer-extensions.json path or automatic lookup. Define how the separate file interacts with the existing configuration and gitignored per-user files; done means users can keep shared devcontainer.json unchanged while supplying their own extensions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
vscode
Domain
developer-experience, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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