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Devcontainer feature

Development containers (devcontainers) are a standardized way to define reproducible, containerized development environments. They let you espress as code your tooling, dependencies, and configuration so every developer (and CI run) gets an identical setup.

poof ships as a devcontainer feature, a self-contained unit that installs and configures a tool inside a devcontainer image. You can mix and match features to build your ideal environment without writing custom Dockerfiles.

The poof feature is published on the GitHub Container Registry and works with any devcontainer-compatible tooling, including VS Code Dev Containers, GitHub Codespaces, and the Dev Container CLI.

Usage​

Add the feature to your devcontainer.json configuration file:

"features": {
    "ghcr.io/pirafrank/poof/poof:1": {}
}

On the next container rebuild, poof will be installed and ready to use inside the environment.

Run poof help to test it and know about available commands.

Options​

Options IdDescriptionTypeDefault Value
versionVersion of poof to install (e.g. latest or 0.6.0)stringlatest

Requirements​

The feature depends on curl and tar being available in the image.

Most devcontainer base images include them. If you use a minimal image, install them first via ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/common-utils or your image's package manager.

Additional notes​

  • poof is installed into /usr/local/bin, which is on $PATH by default in all devcontainer base images.
  • Tools installed by poof go into the poof data directory (~/.local/share/poof/bin on Linux). Run poof enable or add it to $PATH manually if you need it in interactive shells.

Examples​

Use with Ubuntu image​

Basic usage in an Ubuntu base image:

{
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:ubuntu",
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/pirafrank/poof/poof:1": {}
  }
}

Pin a specific poof version​

By default the latest release is installed. Pass the version option to pin it:

"features": {
  "ghcr.io/pirafrank/poof/poof:1": {
    "version": "0.6.0"
  }
}

The v prefix is optional — both "0.6.0" and "v0.6.0" are accepted.

Installing tools with poof after container creation​

Once the feature is installed, use postCreateCommand (or any lifecycle hook) to install your tools:

{
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:ubuntu",
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/pirafrank/poof/poof:1": {}
  },
  "postCreateCommand": "poof install pirafrank/vault-conductor"
}

Install multiple tools​

For multiple tools, use a shell script or chain commands:

{
  "postCreateCommand": "poof install pirafrank/vault-conductor && poof install ms-jpq/[email protected]"
}

Or put them in a script,

{
  "postCreateCommand": ".devcontainer/install-tools.sh"
}

and call it:

#!/bin/sh
# .devcontainer/install-tools.sh
set -e
poof install pirafrank/vault-conductor
poof install ms-jpq/[email protected]
info

Installing multiple tools at once may require a GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable to avoid rate limiting. That is typically not needed in GitHub Codespaces, because they automatically inject a GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable that poof automatically reads to perform authenticated requests.

Further reading​