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)

Container Runtime (Docker or Podman)

For mxcli docker build, mxcli docker run, and mxcli test (which require a container runtime), the dev container must have Docker-in-Docker or Podman-in-Podman support enabled.

Docker-in-Docker (default)

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

Podman-in-Podman

For organizations that cannot use Docker Desktop due to licensing:

{
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/podman-in-podman:1": {}
  },
  "containerEnv": {
    "MXCLI_CONTAINER_CLI": "podman"
  }
}

When running mxcli init, use --container-runtime podman to generate this configuration automatically. Requires Podman 4.7+ (ships podman compose with Docker Compose V2 compatibility).

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.)