Exercise - Add software to an existing container

  • 4 minutes

Dev Container Features and a Dockerfile are excellent tool for adding new software to your container. You might find during a project that you want to include additional software in your dev container over time, like Node.js.

In this exercise, we'll look at how you can install a technology stack like Node in your container at any point.

Dev container Feature

  1. Press F1 to open the Command Palette.

  2. Type explorer and select View: Show Explorer.

  3. Open the .devcontainer folder.

  4. Locate and open the devcontainer.json file.

  5. Add the following code to install Node.js via a Feature.

    "features": {
	"ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/node:1": {
		"version": "18"
	}
}

  6. Save your project.

  7. Open the Command Palette.

  8. Type rebuild and select Dev Containers: Rebuild Container.

Check the Node version

Let's check to make sure Node installed correctly.

  1. Press Ctrl + ` to open the integrated terminal in Visual Studio Code.

  2. Enter the following code to check your version of Node:

    node --version

  3. You should see a version of Node as output in the terminal.

Congratulations! You customized your dev container even further by installing additional software.

Continue to the next unit for a quick knowledge check about dev containers in Visual Studio Code. After that, we'll summarize what we've covered in this Learn module.