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Workspace Management

A workspace is the environment that a developer works in. Developers in a team each work from their own workspace and can use multiple IDEs.

A developer creates a workspace from a shared template. This lets an entire team work in environments that are identically configured and provisioned with the same resources.

Creating workspaces

You can create a workspace in the UI. Log in to your Coder instance, go to the Templates tab, find the template you need, and select Create Workspace.

When you create a workspace, you will be prompted to give it a name. You might also be prompted to set some parameters that the template provides.

You can manage your existing templates in the Workspaces tab.

You can also create a workspace from the command line:

Each Coder user has their own workspaces created from templates:

# create a workspace from the template; specify any variables
coder create --template="<templateName>" <workspaceName>

# show the resources behind the workspace and how to connect
coder show <workspace-name>

Workspace name rules and restrictions

Constraint	Rule
Start/end with	Must start and end with a letter or number
Character types	Letters, numbers, and hyphens only
Length	1-32 characters
Case sensitivity	Case-insensitive (lowercase recommended)
Reserved names	Cannot use `new` or `create`
Uniqueness	Must be unique within your workspaces

Workspace filtering

In the Coder UI, you can filter your workspaces using pre-defined filters or Coder's filter query. Filters follow the pattern [filter name]:[filter text] and multiple filters can be specified separated by a space i.e owner:me status:running

The following filters are supported:

owner - Represents the username of the owner. You can also use me as a convenient alias for the logged-in user, e.g., owner:me
name - Name of the workspace.
template - Name of the template.
status - Indicates the status of the workspace, e.g, status:failed For a list of supported statuses, see WorkspaceStatus documentation.
outdated - Filters workspaces using an outdated template version, e.g, outdated:true
dormant - Filters workspaces based on the dormant state, e.g dormant:true
has-agent - Only applicable for workspaces in "start" transition. Stopped and deleted workspaces don't have agents. List of supported values connecting|connected|timeout, e.g, has-agent:connecting
id - Workspace UUID

Updating workspaces

After updating the default version of the template that a workspace was created from, you can update the workspace.

If the workspace is running, Coder stops it, updates it, then starts the workspace again.

Updating via the CLI

Update a workspace through the command line:

coder update <workspace-name>

Automatic updates

It can be tedious to manually update a workspace everytime an update is pushed to a template. Users can choose to opt-in to automatic updates to update to the active template version whenever the workspace is started.

Note: If a template is updated such that new parameter inputs are required from the user, autostart will be disabled for the workspace until the user has manually updated the workspace.

Bulk operations

Note

Bulk operations are a Premium feature. Learn more.

Licensed admins may apply bulk operations (update, delete, start, stop) in the Workspaces tab. Select the workspaces you'd like to modify with the checkboxes on the left, then use the top-right Actions dropdown to apply the operation.

The start and stop operations can only be applied to a set of workspaces which are all in the same state. For update and delete, the user will be prompted for confirmation before any action is taken.

Starting and stopping workspaces

By default, you manually start and stop workspaces as you need. You can also schedule a workspace to start and stop automatically.

To set a workspace's schedule, go to the workspace, then Settings > Schedule.

Coder might also stop a workspace automatically if there is a template update available.

Learn more about workspace lifecycle and our scheduling features.

Workspace resources

Workspaces in Coder are started and stopped, often based on whether there was any activity or if there was a template update available.

Resources are often destroyed and re-created when a workspace is restarted, though the exact behavior depends on the template. For more information, see Resource Persistence.

Repairing workspaces

Use the following command to re-enter template input variables in an existing workspace. This command is useful when a workspace fails to build because its state is out of sync with the template.

coder update <your workspace name> --always-prompt

First, try re-entering parameters from a workspace. In the Coder UI, you can filter your workspaces using pre-defined filters or employing the Coder's filter query. Take a look at the following examples to understand how to use the Coder's filter query:

To find the workspaces that you own, use the filter owner:me.
To find workspaces that are currently running, use the filter status:running.

You can also do this in the CLI with the following command:

coder update <your workspace name> --always-prompt

If that does not work, a Coder admin can manually push and pull the Terraform state for a given workspace. This can lead to state corruption or deleted resources if you do not know what you are doing.

coder state pull <username>/<workspace name>
# Make changes
coder state push <username>/<workspace name>

Logging

Coder stores macOS and Linux logs at the following locations:

Service	Location
`startup_script`	`/tmp/coder-startup-script.log`
`shutdown_script`	`/tmp/coder-shutdown-script.log`
Agent	`/tmp/coder-agent.log`