GitHub Development Environment (github-dev)

Installs the GitHub CLI (gh) and the essential GitHub VS Code platform extensions (Pull Requests & Issues, GitHub Actions, RemoteHub). Automatically authenticates gh if a token is available in the environment.

AI assistant: For GitHub Copilot Chat and the shared commit-message / PR-description generation instructions, use copilot-dev alongside this feature.

Usage

{
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/github-dev:1": {}
  }
}

With Copilot:

{
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/github-dev:1": {},
    "ghcr.io/helpers4/devcontainer/copilot-dev:1": {}
  }
}

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
`ghVersion`	string	`latest`	GitHub CLI version to install (e.g. `2.50.0` or `latest`)

What Gets Installed

GitHub CLI (`gh`)

Installed from GitHub Releases. Supports x86_64, aarch64, and armv7l.

Common uses inside the devcontainer:

gh auth status              # Check authentication
gh pr list                  # List open PRs
gh pr create                # Create a PR from current branch
gh pr checkout 123          # Check out a PR locally
gh issue list               # List issues
gh run list                 # List workflow runs
gh run watch                # Watch a running workflow
gh release create v1.0.0    # Create a release
gh repo clone org/repo      # Clone a repository

VS Code Extensions

Extension	Purpose
`github.vscode-pull-request-github`	PR and issue management inside VS Code
`github.vscode-github-actions`	GitHub Actions workflow editor with validation
`github.remotehub`	Browse remote GitHub repositories without cloning
`ms-vscode.remote-repositories`	Open and work on remote repositories without cloning (companion to RemoteHub)

Authentication

Auto-auth via token (recommended)

Set GH_TOKEN (or GITHUB_TOKEN) in your environment and gh will authenticate automatically on shell startup — no manual gh auth login needed.

Local / DevPod: add to your devcontainer.json:

{
  "remoteEnv": {
    "GH_TOKEN": "${localEnv:GH_TOKEN}"
  }
}

Then set GH_TOKEN on your host machine (export GH_TOKEN=ghp_... in your shell profile).

GitHub Codespaces: GITHUB_TOKEN is injected automatically — gh is authenticated with no extra configuration.

CI/CD: set GH_TOKEN as a repository or organization secret.

SSH

Use dotfiles-sync to bring your SSH keys into the container.

Manual

gh auth login

Version History

v1.0.5: Extract Copilot Chat extension and generation instructions into the standalone copilot-dev feature (breaking change — add copilot-dev to your devcontainer.json if you relied on Copilot being bundled here).
v1.0.4: Add shared Copilot Chat pull-request title & description instruction.
v1.0.3: Add shared Copilot Chat commit-message instruction (Conventional Commits + gitmoji).
v1.0.2: Remove deprecated github.copilot extension. Add ms-vscode.remote-repositories.
v1.0.0: Initial release.