To be clear: I'm talking about the Docker-Desktop feature "Dev Environments". See here.
I think I'm missing something about the build process of Docker DevEnv. When I build my DevEnv I can see in the logs that npm install is running and necessary files get created. I can even see them when inspecting the container files. But when opening the DevEnv in VS Code a new container gets created overriding the old one and thus deleting all files created in the build process.
Detailed explanation
I want to run Node.js in a Docker DevEnv and work inside it with VS Code. I have a really simple setup with a compose-dev.yaml file that looks like this:
version: '3'
services:
app:
platform: linux/arm64
build:
context: .
target: runner
entrypoint:
- sleep
- infinity
ports:
- 1234:1234
And a Dockerfile that looks like this:
# development builder (faster than runner, do heavy tasks in here!)
FROM node:20 AS development
WORKDIR "/com.docker.devenvironments.code"
COPY . .
RUN npm install
# development runner (ARM/M1 compatible)
FROM --platform=linux/amd64 node:20 AS runner
COPY --from=development . .
The 2 stage build process is because I work on an M1 chip. I think this is not related to my problem.
When I setup the DevEnv in Docker-Desktop I can see in the logs that npm install is running as declared in the Dockerfile.
npm install running in build
When inspecting the new container I can see the newly generated node_modules/ folder.
generated files are present
But when clicking "Open in VSCode" Docker seems to create a new container overriding the old one. new container started
The new container kinda overrides the old one and all the generated files are now lost.
node_modules/ missing
So I don't think this is a bug but im getting sth wrong here. I don't know why I should specify anything in the Dockerfile if it's getting deleted anyways. When opening "normal" Docker containers in VSCode this doesn't happen.
I would expect that opening the DevEnv in VSCode is not overriding every change made in the build process of my DevEnv.
