Your Coder development environment strikes a balance between consistent team configuration and personal customization. The environment's image standardizes the system dependencies for development, but there are several different mechanisms that Coder offers for customizing the environment.
Persistent home
The /home/<username> volume is bound to your environment, and its contents
persist despite shutdowns and rebuilds. This ensures that personal configuration
files like ~/.gitconfig and ~/.zshrc, source code, and project files, are
not disrupted.
The environment's image, however, provides all data
outside /home/<username> and is reset whenever your environment
rebuilds.
~/personalize
If you want to configure your system files, Coder environments expose the
~/personalize rebuild hook. Coder executes the
~/personalize script every time Coder rebuilds the environment.
For example, if you want to use the fish shell as your default but your
environment's image doesn't include it, you can include installation
instructions in your ~/personalize script. Whenever Coder rebuilds your
environment, it runs your ~/personalize script, installs fish, and changes
the default shell.
#!/bin/bash
echo "--Starting personalize"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y fish
sudo chsh -s /usr/bin/fish $USER
The following is a more extensive example of a ~/personalize script:
#!/bin/bash
###########################################################################
# For use with an environment build using an image that includes git. This
# script configures git using Coder's personalize script. This script runs
# each time the environment is rebuilt. The script must be located at
# ~/personalize. The initial environment will not contain this script, so
# it must be added after creation.
###########################################################################
# Backup existing gitconfig if it exists
if [ -f ~/.gitconfig ]; then
echo "Backing up ~/.gitconfig"
mv ~/.gitconfig ~/.gitconfig.bak
fi
# Set name and email in git
echo "[user]\n\temail = [email protected]\n\tname = Your Name" > ~/.gitconfig
Notes
-
*The
-yflag is required to continue through any prompts. Otherwise, the~/personalizescript will abort. -
The personalize script must be executable; if you create your script, you may need to run
chmod +x ~/personalizeto give the script execute permissions. -
When you create a new personalize file or edit an existing file, your changes won't take effect until you either:
- Run ~/personalize using the Coder terminal
- Rebuild your environment
The Environments page shows the log output of the ~/personalize script in the
build log whenever it runs:
Git integration
Once your site manager has set up a Git service, you can
link your Coder account. This will
authenticate all git operations performed in your environment.
Dotfiles repo
A dotfiles repository is a Git repository that contains your personal environment preferences in the form of static files and setup scripts.
We recommend configuring a dotfiles repo (which Coder then clones to your home directory) to ensure that your preferences are applied whenever you create your environment or turn it on.
At startup, Coder clones your dotfiles repository into ~/dotfiles. If there's
an executable ~/dotfiles/install.sh present, Coder executes it. If not, all
dot-prefixed files are symlinked to your home directory.
Read more about dotfiles repos here.
Adding your dotfiles repo to Coder
You can provide a link to your dotfiles repo that's hosted with the Git provider of your choice under User preferences:
