devc is an alternate devcontainers CLI with a simplified interface. It's based on the upstream reference CLI, but ported to Rust by Claude and packaged as a single self-contained binary.
Currently macOS and Linux are supported. As a prerequisite, you need to have a Docker-compatible container runtime installed.
Quickstart
The CLI can be installed in a few ways.
# Install the CLI using Homebrew brew install rameshvarun/tap/devc # Or, use the install script, which downloads to ~/.local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rameshvarun/devc/main/install.sh | sh # Or, download it manually from the releases page # https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc/releases/latest # Or, install from source cargo install --git https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc --locked
Once the CLI is installed, switch to a project that has a .devcontainer spec.
cd project/ # Switch to your project's directory. devc npm test # Run any command inside the container, starting it if it doesn't exist. devc # Or, run with no arguments to get a shell inside the container.
Additional Usage
devc --help # Print usage information devc --version # Print the devc version devc down # Tear down the container
Motivation
Containers make it easy to create reproducible, sandboxed dev environments - that's why the devcontainers specification exists. Although well integrated into VSCode, devcontainers aren't as convenient to use from the command line. devc bridges that gap by providing a simplified interface for launching and using devcontainers.
# Using the reference CLI devcontainer up devcontainer exec npm test # Using devc devc npm test