Remote development All tiers All offerings Beta
-
Introduced in GitLab 15.4 with a flag named
vscode_web_ide
. Disabled by default. - Enabled on GitLab.com in GitLab 15.7.
- Enabled on self-managed in GitLab 15.11.
vscode_web_ide
. On GitLab.com, this feature is available. The feature is not ready for production use.You can use remote development to write and compile code hosted on GitLab. With remote development, you can:
- Create a secure development environment in the cloud.
- Connect to that environment from your local machine through a web browser or client-based solution.
Web IDE as a frontend
You can use the Web IDE to make, commit, and push changes to a project directly from your web browser. This way, you can update any project without having to install any dependencies or clone any repositories locally.
The Web IDE, however, lacks a native runtime environment where you could compile code, run tests, or generate real-time feedback. With remote development, you can use:
- The Web IDE as a frontend
- A separate machine as a backend runtime environment
For a complete IDE experience, connect the Web IDE to a development environment configured to run as a remote host. You can create this environment inside or outside of GitLab.
Workspaces Premium All offerings
A workspace is a virtual sandbox environment for your code in GitLab that includes:
- A runtime environment
- Dependencies
- Configuration files
You can create a workspace from scratch or from a template that you can also customize.
When you configure and connect a workspace to the Web IDE, you can:
- Edit files directly from the Web IDE and commit and push changes to GitLab.
- Use the Web IDE to run tests, debug code, and view real-time feedback.
Manage a development environment
Create a development environment
To create a development environment, run this command:
export CERTS_DIR="/home/ubuntu/.certbot/config/live/${DOMAIN}"
export PROJECTS_DIR="/home/ubuntu"
docker run -d \
--name my-environment \
-p 3443:3443 \
-v "${CERTS_DIR}/fullchain.pem:/gitlab-rd-web-ide/certs/fullchain.pem" \
-v "${CERTS_DIR}/privkey.pem:/gitlab-rd-web-ide/certs/privkey.pem" \
-v "${PROJECTS_DIR}:/projects" \
registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/remote-development/gitlab-rd-web-ide-docker:0.2-alpha \
--log-level warn --domain "${DOMAIN}" --ignore-version-mismatch
The new development environment starts automatically.
Stop a development environment
To stop a running development environment, run this command:
docker container stop my-environment
Start a development environment
To start a stopped development environment, run this command:
docker container start my-environment
The token changes every time you start the development environment.
Remove a development environment
To remove a development environment:
- Stop the development environment.
-
Run this command:
docker container rm my-environment