MCP Devcontainers

MCP server for devcontainer to generate and configure development containers directly from devcontainer.json configuration files.

📌 Pre-condition

This project is built with Node.js. For local development, you can either:

• Install Node.js on your machine, or
• Use the provided devcontainer virtual environment.

You may run the project without installing Node.js locally by using npx:

npx -y mcp-devcontainers

Docker is required in the execution environment:

• For local MCP server: Install Docker on your local machine
• For remote MCP server: Install Docker on the remote server

📦 Docker installation guide: https://docs.docker.com/get-started/get-docker/

🚀 Getting Started

• Build: npm run build - Compiles TypeScript to JavaScript
• Watch mode: npm run watch - Automatically rebuilds on file changes
• Prepare release: npm run prepare - Prepares the package for publishing
• Run ESLint: npm run lint - Executes ESLint for code validation
• Fix ESLint issues: npm run lint:fix - Automatically fixes ESLint errors

MCP Transport

Option 1 - Start STDIO server

Launches the MCP server with stdio transport

npm start

Option 2 - Start SSE server

Runs the MCP server with Server-Sent Events transport on https://{your-domain}/sse

npm start sse

Option 3 - Start Streamable HTTP server

Starts the MCP server with Streamable HTTP transport on https://{your-domain}/mcp

npm start http

📚 Tools

Tools are built on the devcontainers/cli

They enable you to generate and configure development containers directly from devcontainer.json configuration files:

devcontainer_up

Initializes and starts a devcontainer environment in the specified workspace folder. Ensures the devcontainer is operational and ready for development tasks.

• Input Parameters

  Name	Required	Type	Description
  workspaceFolder	⚫	string	Path to the workspace folder
  outputFilePath	⚪	string	Path for output logs

• Returns

  Text content with the devcontainer startup information

devcontainer_run_user_commands

Executes user-defined postCreateCommand and postStartCommand scripts within the devcontainer for the specified workspace. Use this to run setup or initialization tasks after container startup.

• Input Parameters

  Name	Required	Type	Description
  workspaceFolder	⚫	string	Path to the workspace folder
  outputFilePath	⚪	string	Path for output logs

• Returns

  Text content with the command execution result

devcontainer_exec

Runs a custom shell command inside the devcontainer for the specified workspace. Useful for executing arbitrary commands or scripts within the devcontainer environment.

• Input Parameters

  Name	Required	Type	Description
  workspaceFolder	⚫	string	Path to the workspace folder
  outputFilePath	⚪	string	Path for output logs
  command	⚫	string[ ]	Command to execute as string array

• Returns

  Text content with the command execution result

devcontainer_list (TODO)

devcontainer_cleanup (TODO)

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions of any kind to this project, including feature enhancements, UI improvements, documentation updates, test case completions, and syntax corrections. I believe that a real developer can write better code than AI, so if you have concerns about certain parts of the code implementation, feel free to share your suggestions or submit a pull request.

Please review our Code of Conduct. It is in effect at all times. We expect it to be honored by everyone who contributes to this project.

For more information, please see Contributing Guidelines

🐞 Opening an Issue

Before creating an issue, check if you are using the latest version of the project. If you are not up-to-date, see if updating fixes your issue first.

🔒 Reporting Security Issues

Review our Security Policy. Do not file a public issue for security vulnerabilities.

⭐ Credits

Written by @AIQL.com.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.