Dev Container Setup

mxcli supports development inside VS Code Dev Containers, providing a consistent, pre-configured development environment with all tools installed.

What Is a Dev Container?

A dev container is a Docker-based development environment defined by a devcontainer.json configuration file. When you open a project in VS Code with the Dev Containers extension, it builds and starts a container with all development tools pre-installed.

mxcli in Dev Containers

When running inside a dev container, mxcli tools and the mx binary are available at known paths:

Setting Up mxbuild

To download the correct mxbuild version for your project:

mxcli setup mxbuild -p app.mpr

This downloads mxbuild to ~/.mxcli/mxbuild/{version}/ and makes the mx tool available for validation and project creation.

Validating Projects

# Find the mx binary
MX=~/.mxcli/mxbuild/*/modeler/mx

# Check a project
$MX check /path/to/app.mpr

# Create a fresh project for testing
cd /tmp/test-workspace
$MX create-project

Project Initialization

Initialize mxcli for your project inside the dev container:

# Initialize with Claude Code support
mxcli init -p app.mpr

# This creates:
# - .claude/settings.json
# - .claude/commands/
# - .claude/lint-rules/
# - .ai-context/skills/
# - CLAUDE.md
# - VS Code MDL extension (auto-installed)

Docker-in-Docker

For mxcli docker build, mxcli docker run, and mxcli test (which require Docker), the dev container must have Docker-in-Docker support enabled. This is typically configured in devcontainer.json:

{
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/docker-in-docker:2": {}
  }
}

Typical Dev Container Workflow

1. Open the project in VS Code
2. VS Code prompts to reopen in dev container
3. Inside the container, run mxcli setup mxbuild -p app.mpr
4. Run mxcli init to set up AI assistant integration
5. Use mxcli commands as normal (REPL, exec, lint, test, etc.)