The dev container integration appears in your Coder dashboard, providing avisual representation of the running environment:

SSH access

Each dev container has its own agent name, derived from the workspace folder(e.g.,/home/coder/my-project becomesmy-project). You can find agent namesin your workspace dashboard, or seeAgent naming for details on how names are generated.

Using the Coder CLI

The simplest way to SSH into a dev container is usingcoder ssh with theworkspace and agent name:

For example, to connect to a dev container with agent namemy-project inworkspacemy-workspace:

To SSH into the main workspace agent instead of the dev container:

Using OpenSSH (config-ssh)

You can also use standard OpenSSH tools after generating SSH config entries withcoder config-ssh:

This creates a wildcard SSH host entry that matches all your workspaces andtheir agents, including dev container sub-agents. You can then connect using:

The default hostname suffix is.coder. If your organization uses a differentsuffix, adjust the hostname accordingly. The suffix can be configured viacoder config-ssh --hostname-suffix orby your deployment administrator.

This method works with any SSH client, IDE remote extensions,rsync,scp,and other tools that use SSH.

Web terminal access

Once your workspace and dev container are running, you can use the web terminalin the Coder interface to execute commands directly inside the dev container.

IDE integration (VS Code)

You can open your dev container directly in VS Code by:

1. SelectingOpen in VS Code Desktop from the dev container agent in theCoder web interface.

2. Using the Coder CLI:

   coder open vscode <workspace>.<agent>

   For example:

   coder open vscode my-workspace.my-project

VS Code will automatically detect the dev container environment and connectappropriately.

While optimized for VS Code, other IDEs with dev container support may alsowork.

Port forwarding

Since dev containers run as sub-agents, you can forward ports directly to themusing standard Coder port forwarding:

For example, to forward port 8080 from a dev container with agent namemy-project:

This forwards port 8080 on your local machine directly to port 8080 in the devcontainer. Coder also automatically detects ports opened inside the container.

Exposing ports on the parent workspace

If you need to expose dev container ports through the parent workspace agent(rather than the sub-agent), you can use theappPortproperty in yourdevcontainer.json:

This maps container ports to the parent workspace, which can then be forwardedusing the main workspace agent.

Dev container features

You can use standarddev container featuresin yourdevcontainer.json file. Coder also maintains arepository of features toenhance your development experience.

For example, thecode-serverfeature from theCoder features repository:

Rebuilding dev containers

When you modify yourdevcontainer.json, you need to rebuild the container forchanges to take effect. Coder detects changes and shows anOutdated statusnext to the dev container.

ClickRebuild to recreate your dev container with the updated configuration.