Open in Coder

An "Open in Coder" button can be embedded into your git repos or internal wikis to allow developers to quickly launch a new workspace.

How it works

To support any infrastructure and software stack, Coder provides a generic approach for "Open in Coder" flows.

1. Set up Git Authentication in your Coder deployment

2. Modify your template to auto-clone repos:

The id in the template's coder_git_auth data source must match the CODER_GITAUTH_0_ID in the Coder deployment configuration.

• If you want the template to clone a specific git repo

  # Require git authentication to use this template
  data "coder_git_auth" "github" {
      id = "primary-github"
  }
  
  resource "coder_agent" "dev" {
      # ...
      dir = "~/coder"
      startup_script =<<EOF
  
      # Clone repo from GitHub
      if [ ! -d "coder" ]
      then
          git clone https://github.com/coder/coder
      fi
  
      EOF
  }
  

  Note: The dir attribute can be set in multiple ways, for example:

  • ~/coder
  • /home/coder/coder
  • coder (relative to the home directory)

• If you want the template to support any repository via parameters

  # Require git authentication to use this template
  data "coder_git_auth" "github" {
      id = "primary-github"
  }
  
  # Prompt the user for the git repo URL
  data "coder_parameter" "git_repo" {
      name          = "git_repo"
      display_name  = "Git repository"
      default       = "https://github.com/coder/coder"
  }
  
  locals {
      folder_name = try(element(split("/", data.coder_parameter.git_repo.value), length(split("/", data.coder_parameter.git_repo.value)) - 1), "")
  }
  
  resource "coder_agent" "dev" {
      # ...
      dir = "~/${local.folder_name}"
      startup_script =<<EOF
  
      # Clone repo from GitHub
      if [ ! -d "${local.folder_name}" ]
      then
          git clone ${data.coder_parameter.git_repo.value}
      fi
  
      EOF
  }
  

1. Embed the "Open in Coder" button with Markdown

   [![Open in Coder](https://YOUR_ACCESS_URL/open-in-coder.svg)](https://YOUR_ACCESS_URL/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/workspace)
   

   Be sure to replace YOUR_ACCESS_URL with your Coder access url (e.g. https://coder.example.com) and YOUR_TEMPLATE with the name of your template.

2. Optional: pre-fill parameter values in the "Create workspace" page

   This can be used to pre-fill the git repo URL, disk size, image, etc.

   [![Open in Coder](https://YOUR_ACCESS_URL/open-in-coder.svg)](https://YOUR_ACCESS_URL/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/workspace?param.git_repo=https://github.com/coder/slog&param.home_disk_size%20%28GB%29=20)
   

   

Example: Kubernetes

For a full example of the Open in Coder flow in Kubernetes, check out this example template.

Devcontainer support

Devcontainer support is on the roadmap. Follow along here