## Before you mark this PR as ready for review, make sure that you have:
- [x] Added a solid test coverage and/or screenshots from doing manual
testing
- [x] Done a self-review taking into account security and performance
aspects
- [x] Aligned any UI changes with the [UI
checklist](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist)
## Summary
Adds a `--dev-container` CLI flag that automatically triggers "Reopen in
Dev Container" when a `.devcontainer/` configuration is found in the
project directory.
```sh
zed --dev-container /path/to/project
```
## Motivation
This enables fully scripted dev container workflows — for example,
creating a git worktree and immediately opening it in a dev container
without any manual UI interaction:
```sh
git worktree add ../feature-branch
zed --dev-container ../feature-branch
```
The dev container modal fires automatically once the workspace finishes
initializing, so the environment is ready by the time you look at the
window. This is useful for automation scripts that prepare environments
and kick off agent runs for tasks like bug report triage.
Here's an [example
script](https://github.com/antont/todo-rs-ts/blob/main/scripts/devcontainer-new.sh)
that creates a worktree and opens it as a dev container in one step.
Related: #48682 requests a `devcontainer://` protocol for connecting to
already-running dev containers — a complementary but different use case.
This PR covers the "open project and trigger dev container setup" path.
## How it works
- The `--dev-container` flag flows through the CLI IPC protocol to the
workspace as an `open_in_dev_container` option.
- On the first worktree scan completion, if devcontainer configs are
detected, the dev container modal opens automatically.
- If no `.devcontainer/` config is found, the flag is cleared and a
warning is logged.
## Notable changes
- **`Workspace::worktree_scans_complete`** promoted from `#[cfg(test)]`
to production. It was only test-gated because it had no production
callers — it's a pure read-only future with no side effects.
- **`suggest_on_worktree_updated`** now takes `&mut Workspace` to read
and clear the CLI flag.
- Extracted **`open_dev_container_modal`** helper shared between the CLI
code path and the suggest notification.
## Test plan
- [x] `cargo test -p zed open_listener` — includes
`test_dev_container_flag_opens_modal` and
`test_dev_container_flag_cleared_without_config`
- [x] `cargo test -p recent_projects` — existing suggest tests still
pass
- [x] Manual: `cargo run -- --dev-container
/path/to/project-with-devcontainer` opens the modal
Release Notes:
- Added `--dev-container` CLI flag to automatically open a project in a
dev container when `.devcontainer/` configuration is present.
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
All of the important changes are in
[`db.rs`](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/51809/changes#diff-2f644eab943bfa58feec29256281a3d9e8d4d7784cd34783e845af8beb15b16d).
Consider reading the commit log in order to review this work.
The DB crate's macro and API was changed to fix flakiness observed in
the MultiWorkspace tests when run locally. This flakiness was caused by
a shared `static LazyLock`, that caused concurrent test runs to interact
with the same underlying in-memory database. This flakiness wasn't
possible on CI due to it's usage of `cargo nextest`, whose
process-per-test approach masked this problem.
Essentially, I've changed the `static_connection` macro to remove the
static database variable and redone the internal model. Now, all
database types are thin wrappers around a generic `AppDatabase`. The
`AppDatabase` collects all of the individual table's migrations via the
`inventory` crate, and so only runs the migrations once on startup,
rather than a dozen times on startup.
The new API requires a `cx` so that we can replace the database returned
at runtime, rather than relying exclusively on a process-global
thread-local. However, we are still using a `static LazyLock` so that we
only need to take an `&App`, instead of an `&mut App`. These databases
types are `Clone + Send + Sync`, so you can easily capture-and-move the
database into background tasks and other places that don't have a `cx`.
For tests that require database isolation, it is now possible to set
their own database in init. See
[`workspace::init_test`](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/51809/changes#diff-041673bbd1947a35d45945636c0055429dfc8b5985faf93f8a8a960c9ad31e28R13610),
for the flakiness fix.
Best part, this change should be entirely compiler driven, so the Zed
agent was able to make the app-wide refactor easily.
Before you mark this PR as ready for review, make sure that you have:
- [x] Added a solid test coverage and/or screenshots from doing manual
testing
- [x] Done a self-review taking into account security and performance
aspects
- [x] Aligned any UI changes with the [UI
checklist](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist)
Release Notes:
- N/A
---------
Co-authored-by: Anthony Eid <hello@anthonyeid.me>
Co-authored-by: Max Brunsfeld <maxbrunsfeld@gmail.com>
Closes#48683
Per the devcontainer spec, `.devcontainer.json` in the project root is
a valid config location. It is only used when no configurations are
found inside `.devcontainer/`.
Extract `find_configs_in_snapshot` for testability and add tests.
Release Notes:
- Added support for `.devcontainer.json` in project root
Partially addresses #11473
MVP of dev containers with the following capabilities:
- If in a project with `.devcontainer/devcontainer.json`, a pop-up
notification will ask if you want to open the project in a dev
container. This can be dismissed:
<img width="1478" height="1191" alt="Screenshot 2025-12-08 at 3 15
23 PM"
src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ec2e20d6-28ec-4495-8f23-4c1d48a9ce78"
/>
- Similarly, if a `devcontainer.json` file is in the project, you can
open a devcontainer (or go the devcontainer.json file for further
editing) via the `open remote` modal:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/61f2fdaa-2808-4efc-994c-7b444a92c0b1
*Limitations*
This is a first release, and comes with some limitations:
- Zed extensions are not managed in `devcontainer.json` yet. They will
need to be installed either on host or in the container. Host +
Container sync their extensions, so there is not currently a concept of
what is installed in the container vs what is installed on host: they
come from the same list of manifests
- This implementation uses the [devcontainer
CLI](https://github.com/devcontainers/cli) for its control plane. Hence,
it does not yet support the `forwardPorts` directive. A single port can
be opened with `appPort`. See reference in docs
[here](https://github.com/devcontainers/cli/tree/main/example-usage#how-the-tool-examples-work)
- Editing devcontainer.json does not automatically cause the dev
container to be rebuilt. So if you add features, change images, etc, you
will need to `docker kill` the existing dev container before proceeding.
- Currently takes a hard dependency on `docker` being available in the
user's `PATH`.
Release Notes:
- Added ability to Open a project in a DevContainer, provided a
`.devcontainer/devcontainer.json` is present
---------
Co-authored-by: Danilo Leal <daniloleal09@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Danilo Leal <67129314+danilo-leal@users.noreply.github.com>
Smit Barmase