Coder: Low cost, self hosted Cloud Development Environments

Coder is an open-source platform that allows organizations to define and manage development environments within their own public or private cloud infrastructure. Think of it as a way to create standardized, reproducible, and scalable development workspaces in the cloud. Instead of developers painstakingly setting up their local machines (and inevitably running into "it works on my machine" issues), Coder provisions consistent environments using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC). It's like having a well-stocked, perfectly organized workshop for each developer, accessible from anywhere. If your current development environment setup feels like a chaotic, untamed junkyard, Coder might just be the Marie Kondo of your workflow.

Quickstart

The fastest way to get your hands dirty with Coder is to install it locally and play around with Docker-based development environments. This works across Linux, macOS, and even Windows (yes, even Windows developers deserve nice things).

# First, install Coder.  It's like magic, but with more typing.
curl -L https://coder.com/install.sh | sh

# Start the Coder server.  This is where the fun begins.
coder server

# Open your browser and go to http://localhost:3000.
# Create a user, a Docker template, and provision a workspace.
# You're basically a cloud wizard now.

Installation

The recommended installation method is the install script (for Linux and macOS). Windows users can grab the latest ..._installer.exe from the GitHub Releases page.

# This one-liner is all you need for Linux and macOS.
curl -L https://coder.com/install.sh | sh

If you're the cautious type (or just curious), use --dry-run to see what the script would do without actually doing it. Use --help for even more options.

See install for alternative installation methods, because we all love options.

For a production deployment, a single command gets you started:

# This sets up an external access URL on *.try.coder.app. Easy peasy.
coder server

# If you're feeling fancy and have a PostgreSQL database (v13+), use this:
coder server --postgres-url <url> --access-url <url>

coder --help is your friend for a full list of flags and environment variables. The install guides provide detailed, step-by-step instructions, because sometimes we all need a little hand-holding.

Documentation

The Coder documentation is your bible, your guiding light, your source of truth. Find it here. Here's a quick rundown of the key sections:

Templates

Templates are the blueprints for your workspaces. They're written in Terraform (so you can version control them, collaborate on them, and generally feel like a responsible adult). These templates describe the infrastructure, like EC2 instances, Kubernetes Pods, or Docker containers. Think of it as defining the recipe for your perfect development environment.

Workspaces

Workspaces are the actual instances of your development environments. They contain the IDEs, dependencies, and all the configuration details a developer needs to start coding. No more "dependency hell," just a clean, consistent environment.

IDEs

IDEs You can connect your favorite editor to a Coder workspace. Whether you're a VS Code aficionado, a JetBrains devotee, or still clinging to Vim (we respect that), Coder has you covered.

Administration

Administration This section is for the folks who keep the lights on. Learn how to manage and operate Coder, because with great power comes great responsibility (and the occasional troubleshooting session).

Premium

Premium: For larger teams, Coder offers paid features. Think of it as the enterprise-grade version, with extra bells and whistles.

Support

Stuck? Found a bug? Have a brilliant feature idea? Open an issue. The Coder team is there to help (and they're surprisingly friendly).

Join the Coder Discord to chat with the community, share your experiences, and provide feedback on upcoming features. It's like a virtual water cooler for Coder users.

Integrations

Coder plays well with others. New integrations are constantly being developed, and contributions are always welcome.

Official Integrations

These are the integrations maintained by the Coder team:

• VS Code Extension: Seamlessly open Coder workspaces in VS Code.
• JetBrains Gateway Extension: Do the same, but for JetBrains IDEs.
• Dev Container Builder: Build environments using devcontainer.json on Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift. Because standards are important.
• Module Registry: Extend your environments with pre-built modules for common use cases. Less boilerplate, more coding.
• Kubernetes Log Stream: Stream Kubernetes Pod events to the Coder startup logs. Because debugging shouldn't be a guessing game.
• Self-Hosted VS Code Extension Marketplace: A private extension marketplace for air-gapped or restricted networks. Integrates with code-server.
• Setup Coder: A GitHub Action to set up the Coder CLI in your workflows. Automate all the things!

Community Integrations

These are integrations built by the awesome Coder community:

• Provision Coder with Terraform: Deploy Coder on various Kubernetes platforms (GKE, AKS, EKS, DOKS, etc.) using Terraform. Infrastructure-as-Code for your Infrastructure-as-Code platform. Meta!
• Coder Template GitHub Action: A GitHub Action to automatically update Coder templates.

Contributing

Want to contribute to Coder? That's fantastic! Check out the contribution guide to get started. New contributors are always welcome.

Hiring

Interested in joining the Coder team? Apply here. They're building cool stuff, and you could be a part of it.

Source

This article is based on the README file from the official Coder repository: Coder GitHub Repository.

GitHub - coder/coder: Provision remote development environments via Terraform

Provision remote development environments via Terraform - coder/coder

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