Is there a way to launch Visual Studio Code and force it to open in a Remote Container?

Question

I regularly open Visual Studio Code via code . and then have to click the Re-open in Container button.

Am I missing any shortcut to force it to do this from the command line?

Answer 1

There is a way to do this GUIcally in Windows. I suspect this will also work for SSH / WSL workspaces.

1. Open your dev container in VSCode as usual.
2. Right-click on your VSCode taskbar icon; it should show you a jump list with MRU workspaces.
3. Look for that [Dev Container] list item (mine shows localhost:2375 because that's my docker host). You might like to pin it.
4. You can open directly into the dev container by clicking on that item.

Answer 2

You can open devcontainer directly with devcontainer CLI.

Install devcontainer CLI by running Remote-Containers: Install devcontainer CLI from VS Code. Then just run:

devcontainer open

in the same directory where you'd run code . and you will skip the Re-open step.