With automation you can simplify many things as a developer. This includes automating the process of configuring commit signing with dotfiles.

Looking to maintain virtual machine or Docker images in the most efficient way possible? Trying to build an image for GitHub ARC and needing to ensure you’re always using the latest available base image and runner? Then what you need is an Image Factory.

The support for custom features in Dev Containers is a huge improvement to the process of customizing images quickly and easily. The convenience and simplicity can have a cost – performance. Trying to customize a container using a feature recently, I struggled with an incredibly long build time. This is how I improved the process.

Git’s safe directory configuration helps to protect users, but it can create challenges. This is especially true when using Hugo with Azure Static Web Sites. In that case, you’re dealing with an Action that bind-mounts the source code into a container. This requires some special handling.

BuildKit provides native support for caching layers to improve build times. In this post, we’ll explore implementing gha, inline, and registry caches with GHCR and GitHub Actions.

The third and final part of our exploration of Features and creating a simple feature. Now it’s time to dive deeper into Linux scripting to create an entrypoint for the non-root users.

Sometimes scripting in containers just isn’t enough. We need modular, reusable components to create repeatable practices. We need to implement our first Feature.

One of the newest additions to the dev container specification is Features. Today I’ll explore the basics of the specification and how it lets you create reusable components for your dev containers.

Let’s get a bit crazy for 2023. In this post, we’ll see if we can run some Docker commands from inside our Alpine dev container using Docker-from-Docker and a bit of configuration.

Want to reduce how long it takes to get your Dev Container started? Take advantage of some advanced caching techniques!