node-dev.md

node-dev

Pre-built devcontainer for general Node.js / TypeScript projects (services, CLIs, libraries). For browser apps with Tailwind and similar, see frontend-dev. Works for both human developers and AI coding agents.

What's included

Tool	Version	Purpose
Node.js	26	Runtime and package management
npm / pnpm / yarn	via corepack	Package managers (corepack enable pnpm to activate pnpm)
Docker-outside-of-Docker	latest	Build images and run containers via the host Docker socket
kubectl	1.36	Deploy to and inspect Kubernetes clusters
Helm	4.1	Install and manage Helm charts
k3d	5.8.3 (pinned in images/Dockerfile)	Local Kubernetes cluster — start it with k3d-cluster-init
git	latest	Source control
GitHub CLI (gh)	2.92 (patch auto-updates)	PRs, issues, releases, Actions
Copilot CLI, Claude Code	pinned in images/Dockerfile	AI agents

VS Code extensions

github.copilot, github.copilot-chat, anthropics.claude-code, esbenp.prettier-vscode, dbaeumer.vscode-eslint, ms-vscode.vscode-typescript-next.

Usage

// .devcontainer/devcontainer.json in your service repo
{
  "name": "my-node-service",
  "image": "ghcr.io/dever-labs/devcontainers/node-dev:latest",
  "postCreateCommand": "npm install"
}

Pin to an immutable build with node-dev:<yyyymmdd>-<sha> instead of latest when you need reproducibility.