{"slug": "show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers", "title": "Show HN: Devc – an alternate CLI for launching devcontainers", "summary": "Developer Ramesh Varun released devc, an alternate CLI for the devcontainers specification that was ported to Rust by Claude and packaged as a single self-contained binary. devc simplifies launching devcontainers by collapsing the reference CLI's two-step `devcontainer up` plus `devcontainer exec npm test` into a single `devc npm test` command, and is installable via Homebrew, an install script, GitHub releases, or `cargo install`. The tool supports macOS and Linux and requires a Docker-compatible container runtime.", "body_md": "`devc` is an alternate [devcontainers](https://containers.dev/) CLI with a simplified interface. It's based on the [upstream reference CLI](https://github.com/devcontainers/cli), but ported to Rust by Claude and packaged as a single self-contained binary.\n\nCurrently macOS and Linux are supported. As a prerequisite, you need to have a Docker-compatible container runtime installed.\n\nThe CLI can be installed in a few ways.\n\n```\n# Install the CLI using Homebrew\nbrew install rameshvarun/tap/devc\n\n# Or, use the install script, which downloads to ~/.local/bin\ncurl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rameshvarun/devc/main/install.sh | sh\n\n# Or, download it manually from the releases page\n# https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc/releases/latest\n\n# Or, install from source\ncargo install --git https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc --locked\n```\n\nOnce the CLI is installed, switch to a project that has a `.devcontainer` spec.\n\n```\ncd project/ # Switch to your project's directory.\ndevc npm test # Run any command inside the container, starting it if it doesn't exist.\ndevc # Or, run with no arguments to get a shell inside the container.\ndevc --help # Print usage information\ndevc --version # Print the devc version\ndevc down # Tear down the container\n```\n\nContainers make it easy to create reproducible, sandboxed dev environments - that's why the [devcontainers](https://containers.dev/) specification exists. Although well integrated into VSCode, devcontainers aren't as convenient to use from the command line. `devc` bridges that gap by providing a simplified interface for launching and using devcontainers.\n\n```\n# Using the reference CLI\ndevcontainer up\ndevcontainer exec npm test\n\n# Using devc\ndevc npm test\n```\n\n", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc", "published_at": "2026-09-24 17:16:54+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-24 17:30:13.858458+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["devc", "Ramesh Varun", "devcontainers", "Docker", "Rust", "Claude", "Homebrew", "GitHub"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-devc-an-alternate-cli-for-launching-devcontainers.jsonld"}}