nextcloud-news-devcontainer

A pre-built devcontainer image for Nextcloud News.

What's included

The image extends ghcr.io/juliusknorr/nextcloud-dev-php83 and adds:

Tool	Source	Reason
Python 3 + pip	Debian apt	Replaces the ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/python devcontainer feature, which compiles Python from source on every rebuild (slow). The apt package is pre-baked into the image.
zizmor	pip	GitHub Actions security scanner — pre-installed so the postAttachCommand doesn't need to fetch it each time.
HTTPie	pip	HTTP client (http/https commands) — used in nextcloud/news bats integration tests.
nvm	nvm install script	Node Version Manager, installed to /usr/local/nvm so all users can access it. Allows easy switching of Node.js versions inside the container.
Node.js LTS	nvm	Latest LTS release, installed via nvm and set as the default. The nvm directory is world-writable so non-root users can run npm install -g without sudo.
bats	npm (global)	Bash Automated Testing System — used in nextcloud/news for shell-level tests.

Usage in the Nextcloud News repo

Create or replace .devcontainer/devcontainer.json in the nextcloud/news repository:

{
    "image": "ghcr.io/grotax/nextcloud-news-devcontainer:latest",
    "remoteUser": "vscode",
    "updateRemoteUserUID": true,
    "forwardPorts": [80],
    "containerEnv": {
        "NEXTCLOUD_VERSION": "33",
        "NEXTCLOUD_AUTOINSTALL_APPS": "news",
        "XDEBUG_MODE": "debug"
    },
    "workspaceMount": "source=${localWorkspaceFolder},target=/var/www/html/apps-extra/news,type=bind",
    "workspaceFolder": "/var/www/html/apps-extra/news",
    "postCreateCommand": "bash .devcontainer/setup.sh",
    "overrideCommand": true,
    "portsAttributes": {
        "80": { "label": "Webserver" }
    },
    "features": {
        "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/github-cli": "latest"
    },
    "customizations": {
        "vscode": {
            "extensions": [
                "Vue.volar",
                "bmewburn.vscode-intelephense-client"
            ],
            "settings": {
                "php.suggest.basic": false
            }
        }
    }
}

Add the setup script at .devcontainer/setup.sh:

#!/bin/bash
bash /workspaces/nextcloud-news-devcontainer/.devcontainer/setup.sh

Note: The setup.sh in this repository is the canonical one. If you vendor it into the news repo, copy .devcontainer/setup.sh from here.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
NEXTCLOUD_VERSION	(latest master)	Nextcloud server version to install. Use a number (33) for a stable branch or master for the development branch.
NEXTCLOUD_AUTOINSTALL_APPS	(none)	Space-separated list of apps to enable after install, e.g. news.
SQL	sqlite	Database backend: sqlite, mysql, pgsql.
XDEBUG_MODE	(off)	Xdebug mode, e.g. debug or coverage.

How it works

1. postCreateCommand runs .devcontainer/setup.sh.
2. The script calls the base image's bootstrap.sh with sudo -E so all environment variables are preserved.
3. bootstrap.sh clones the Nextcloud server at the requested branch (or uses a mounted source), installs it with occ maintenance:install, and enables any NEXTCLOUD_AUTOINSTALL_APPS.
4. After install, setup.sh fixes ownership of config/, data/, and apps-writable/ so the vscode user can read and write them without sudo.
5. Apache is left running in the background, serving Nextcloud at http://localhost (credentials: admin / admin).

The workspace folder (/var/www/html/apps-extra/news) is bind-mounted from the host, so your source edits are reflected immediately without any copy step.

Releases & CI

A new image is built and pushed to ghcr.io/grotax/nextcloud-news-devcontainer automatically when a GitHub Release is published in this repository. Images are tagged with the release version (e.g. 1.0.0, 1.0) as well as latest.