adds devcontainer to install command

[videlalvaro]

I'm working with the VS Code & GitHub teams and we like to propose the following idea.

When working in projects that have a complex infrastructure - say a MySQL backend, with Redis for caching - it's hard to get the project started due to infrastructure setup. Thanks to Sail, Laravel addresses most of those problems, making it easy to start new projects. We want to improve that experience even further by enabling the current project setup to “just work” in VS Code.

Imagine opening a folder with a Laravel project and the editor takes care of setting up the environment automatically for the user. Not only on the infrastructure level, but also installing the required editor extensions so the developer can start hacking right away.

By adding a .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file to a project VS Code will detect that the project can be opened inside a container and do all the heavy lifting for the user.

A more detailed description of this feature can be found here: laravel/ideas#2660

Here's the .devcontainer.json documentation https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/devcontainerjson-reference

Since Sail already does most of the heavy lifting for a user when it comes to containers, adding a .devcontainer.json to a project is the natural next step. This would allow VS Code to fire up the containers after prompting the user for confirmation. Once the user has told VS Code to start the containers, VS Code will use the docker-compose generated by Sail to start those containers, and connect remotely to them, so the user has a development environment that's ready to work in the containers.

Besides the container side of the PR, it also suggests a list of Laravel extensions for VS Code, in order to provide a sort of standardized dev environment for Laravel developers. Of course the list suggested here can be improved.

Caveat

For this to work auto-magically with VS Code the .env file requires the following variables to be set:

Also based on the installed services we could specify a list of ports to be forwarded to the user computer.

WWWGROUP=1000
WWWUSER=1000

If the team thinks it's OK to add that to the .env file then I could update the PR accordingly.

[finagin]

@videlalvaro, I don't use VS Code and I don't need extra files in my project. Make it an option. I can do PR if you have problems with it.

[taylorotwell]

Converted to option. Thanks!

[videlalvaro]

Awesome @taylorotwell thanks!

Do you think there's room for documentation perhaps on the Sail site? I could help write those.

[taylorotwell]

@videlalvaro sure!

[videlalvaro]

@taylorotwell

I'm trying to see what is the best place to update the docs.

What would be the best way to have this https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/installation#choosing-your-sail-services support the devcontainer installation?

I tried something like the following URL curl -s "https://laravel.build/st?with=mysql,redis&devcontainer" trying to pass the --devcontainer option, but that didn't work. I'd assume the URL parameters aren't being expanded on laravel.build

Any suggestions?

Should this be documented in the Sail side of things?

[driesvints]

@videlalvaro probably on the Sail docs specifically.

I tried something like the following URL curl -s "https://laravel.build/st?with=mysql,redis&devcontainer" trying to pass the --devcontainer option, but that didn't work. I'd assume the URL parameters aren't being expanded on laravel.build

I think this indeed is because the sail server code still needs to be updated. I have it on my list to look into this at some point and get a fully working VS Code setup. But it might be a while before I get to that.

I'm btw in the GitHub Stars channel on the GitHub partners slack if you want to hmu on this :)

[xanderificnl]

In the meantime, it is possible to misuse the with parameter like so:

curl -s https://laravel.build/app-name?with=mysql,redis,meilisearch,mailhog,selenium%20--devcontainer | bash

Also, if someone can point me to the laravel.build source code, I could add the option for the devcontainer.

[driesvints]

@xanderificnl it's closed source

[xanderificnl]

Is there a reason for it being closed source? i.e. does it do more than just spit out a bash script?

[driesvints]

We just don't want that one publicly for now, sorry.

[videlalvaro]

@driesvints hey, we would like to perhaps create a laravel/devcontainer tutorial. Do you think the server code could be updated so something like this would work officially? #203 (comment)

[burkeholland]

We really like this setup and would love to promote Laravel with VS Code. If we could get this added to the server code, we could get rolling on our side with some content on Laravel and VS Code.

[driesvints]

I'm sorry @videlalvaro @burkeholland, I totally lost track of @videlalvaro's question. We've recently open sourced the app that runs the Sail install process. Take a look at https://github.com/laravel/sail-server, feel free to make a PR and we'll have a look 👍

[xanderificnl]

It works: https://laravel.build/test?devcontainer -- enjoy!

[videlalvaro]

EDIT: nevermind, I see it's here in the code already https://github.com/videlalvaro/sail-server/blob/master/routes/web.php#L25

@driesvints is the solution proposed by @xanderificnl above officially supported?

This: https://laravel.build/test?devcontainer

If yes, I could send a PR documenting that, and also we could start building some video demos with this.

[driesvints]

Yes we deployed that 👍

You can also use the parameter with a default value if that's more clearer to users: https://laravel.build/test?devcontainer=true

[videlalvaro]

Yeah I just saw that in the code https://github.com/videlalvaro/sail-server/blob/master/routes/web.php#L25

Awesome!