Show HN: Devc – an alternate CLI for launching devcontainers

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.

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. Currently macOS and Linux are supported. As a prerequisite, you need to have a Docker-compatible container runtime installed. The CLI can be installed in a few ways. Install the CLI using Homebrew brew install rameshvarun/tap/devc Or, use the install script, which downloads to ~/.local/bin curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rameshvarun/devc/main/install.sh | sh Or, download it manually from the releases page https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc/releases/latest Or, install from source cargo install --git https://github.com/rameshvarun/devc --locked Once the CLI is installed, switch to a project that has a .devcontainer spec. cd project/ Switch to your project's directory. devc npm test Run any command inside the container, starting it if it doesn't exist. devc Or, run with no arguments to get a shell inside the container. devc --help Print usage information devc --version Print the devc version devc down Tear down the container Containers 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. Using the reference CLI devcontainer up devcontainer exec npm test Using devc devc npm test