AI Coding Agents DevPod Template

Run AI coding agents safely inside Docker containers using DevPod.

AI coding agents are powerful. Running them unconstrained on your computer is risky. This template runs them within Docker containers to mitigate the risk of data loss or corruption from hallucinations.

DevPod is an open source alternative to GitHub Codespaces. It lets you spin up development containers from a .devcontainer configuration with a single command.

Prerequisites

(Skip if you've done this before)

1. Install Docker
2. Install DevPod CLI
3. Add Docker to DevPod as the default provider:

devpod provider add docker
devpod provider use docker

Quick Start

1. Clone this repository and cd into it
2. Run devpod up . --ide vscode

That's it! Claude Code and Codex CLI are automatically installed and ready to use.

What's Included

AI Coding Agents

• Claude Code - Anthropic's AI coding assistant (auto-installed)
• OpenAI Codex CLI - OpenAI's AI coding agent (auto-installed)

Development Tools

• Python + uv - Python with fast package management
• Rust - Full Rust toolchain with rust-analyzer
• Node.js - JavaScript runtime
• Git + GitHub CLI - Version control

Using the AI Coding Agents

Once the container opens in VS Code:

Claude Code

# Start with all permissions (recommended for containers)
claude --dangerously-skip-permissions

# Or start with normal permissions
claude

OpenAI Codex CLI

# Start in yolo mode - no approvals or sandbox (recommended for containers)
codex --yolo

# Or start with normal permissions
codex

Customization

Edit .devcontainer/devcontainer.json to customize your environment:

• Change the base image (Debian, Fedora, etc.)
• Add/remove language features (Julia, Go, etc.)
• Add VS Code extensions
• Modify the setup script in .devcontainer/setup.sh

See devcontainer features for available options.

How It Works

The .devcontainer/ folder contains:

• devcontainer.json - Container configuration with VS Code extensions
• setup.sh - Post-creation script that installs Claude Code, Codex CLI, and uv

The .claude/settings.json file pre-configures Claude Code to bypass permission prompts (safe within containers).

See Also

• Claude Code DevPod template for Python only
• Claude Code DevPod template for Rust only

Resources

• DevPod Documentation
• Claude Code Documentation
• OpenAI Codex CLI Documentation
• Devcontainer Features
• Microsoft Devcontainer Images