technicalpickles / technicalpickles/dotfiles-devcontainer
feat: Extract shell configuration into a devcontainer feature
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Shell
- Stars
- 0
- Forks
- 0
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Problem
Shell configuration is currently baked into the template Dockerfile via chsh. This:
- Requires a custom Dockerfile even when no other customization is needed
- Mixes concerns (shell setup vs. other image customization)
- Cannot be easily swapped or disabled
Proposal
Create a devcontainer feature for shell configuration that:
- Runs
chshto set the default shell for the vscode user - Configures VS Code terminal profiles via feature customizations
- Accepts a shell option (fish, zsh, bash, etc.)
Example Usage
{
"features": {
"ghcr.io/technicalpickles/devcontainer-features/shell:1.0": {
"shell": "fish"
}
}
}
Benefits
- Template Dockerfile becomes
FROM baseonly (or eliminated entirely) - Shell choice is explicit and composable
- Easier to support multiple shells
- Follows devcontainer feature conventions
Related
This was identified during the persistent home volume design work. See docs/plans/2025-01-08-persistent-home-volume-design.md.
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Read docs/plans/2025-01-08-persistent-home-volume-design.md, then inspect how shell configuration is currently handled in the template Dockerfile. Define the feature's shell option, chsh behavior, and VS Code terminal customizations, and verify that the feature works with the example fish configuration and other supported shells.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- docker, shell, vscode
- Domain
- devops, tooling
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100