Create the following files on your host if you don't have them:
```
touch ~/.gitconfig ~/.zsh_history
```
Note that the development container will create the empty directories ~/.docker and ~/.ssh if you don't have them.
For Docker on OSX or Windows without WSL: ensure your home directory ~ is accessible by Docker.
For Docker on Windows without WSL: if you want to use SSH keys, bind mount your host ~/.ssh to /tmp/.ssh instead of ~/.ssh by changing the volumes section in the docker-compose.yml.
Open the command palette in Visual Studio Code (CTRL+SHIFT+P).
Select Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container... and choose the project directory.

Customization #

Customize the image #

You can make changes to the Dockerfile and then rebuild the image. For example, your Dockerfile could be:

FROM qmcgaw/latexdevcontainer
RUN apk add curl

To rebuild the image, either:

With VSCode through the command palette, select Remote-Containers: Rebuild and reopen in container
With a terminal, go to this directory and docker-compose build

Customize VS code settings #

You can customize settings and extensions in the devcontainer.json definition file.

Entrypoint script #

You can bind mount a shell script to /home/vscode/.welcome.sh to replace the current welcome script.

Publish a port #

To access a port from your host to your development container, publish a port in docker-compose.yml. You can also now do it directly with VSCode without restarting the container.

Run other services #

Modify docker-compose.yml to launch other services at the same time as this development container, such as a test database:
```
  database:
    image: postgres
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: password
```
In devcontainer.json, change the line "runServices": ["vscode"], to "runServices": ["vscode", "database"],.
In the VS code command palette, rebuild the container.