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.
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 --lockedOnce 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.devc --help # Print usage information
devc --version # Print the devc version
devc down # Tear down the containerContainers 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