Develop in Containers with Dev Containers

Zed now supports Dev Containers, allowing you to develop inside Docker containers with consistent, reproducible development environments.

What are Dev Containers?

Dev Containers let you use a Docker container as a full-featured development environment. This ensures everyone on your team uses the same tools, runtime versions, and dependencies.

How to Use

1. Add a .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file to your project root
2. Open your project in Zed
3. Zed will detect the Dev Container configuration
4. Choose to open the project in the container

Example Configuration

{
  "name": "Node.js Dev Container",
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/javascript-node:18",
  "customizations": {
    "zed": {
      "extensions": ["eslint", "prettier"]
    }
  }
}

Benefits

• Consistency: Same environment across all developers
• Isolation: Project dependencies don’t conflict with system packages
• Onboarding: New team members get started instantly
• Clean: Keep your local machine clean

Perfect for teams working with multiple tech stacks or complex dependency requirements.