Coder

Coder creates remote development machines so you can develop your code from anywhere. #coder

Note: Coder is in an alpha state, but any serious bugs are P1 for us so please report them.

Code more

• Build and test faster
  • Leveraging cloud CPUs, RAM, network speeds, etc.
• Access your environment from any place on any client (even an iPad)
• Onboard instantly then stay up to date continuously

Manage less

• Ensure your entire team is using the same tools and resources
  • Rollout critical updates to your developers with one command
• Automatically shut down expensive cloud resources
• Keep your source code and data behind your firewall

How it works

Coder workspaces are represented with Terraform. But, no Terraform knowledge is required to get started. We have a database of pre-made templates built into the product.

Coder workspaces don't stop at compute. You can add storage buckets, secrets, sidecars and whatever else Terraform lets you dream up.

Learn more about managing infrastructure.

IDE Support

You can use any Web IDE (code-server, projector, Jupyter, etc.), JetBrains Gateway, VS Code Remote or even a file sync such as mutagen.

Installing Coder

We recommend installing the latest release on a system with at least 1 CPU core and 2 GB RAM:

1. Download the release asset appropriate for your operating system

2. Unzip the folder you just downloaded, and move the coder executable to a location that's on your PATH

   # ex. MacOS and Linux
   mv coder /usr/local/bin 

   Windows: see this guide on adding a folder to PATH

There are a few ways to run Coder:

• To run a temporary deployment, start with dev mode (all data is in-memory and destroyed on exit):

  coder server --dev

• To run a production deployment with PostgreSQL:

  CODER_PG_CONNECTION_URL="postgres://<username>@<host>/<database>?password=<password>" \
      coder server

• To run as a system service, install with .deb (Debian, Ubuntu) or .rpm (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, SUSE):

  # Edit the configuration!
  sudo vim /etc/coder.d/coder.env
  sudo service coder restart

  macOS and Windows users: You'll need to write your own configuration to run Coder as a system service.

• See the installation guide for additional ways to run Coder (e.g., docker-compose)

Use coder --help to get a complete list of flags and environment variables.

Creating your first template and workspace

In a new terminal window, run the following to copy a sample template:

coder templates init

Follow the CLI instructions to modify and create the template specific for your usage (e.g., a template to Develop in Linux on Google Cloud).

Create a workspace using your template:

coder create --template="yourTemplate" <workspaceName>

Connect to your workspace via SSH:

coder ssh <workspaceName>

Modifying templates

You can edit the Terraform template using a sample template:

coder templates init
cd gcp-linux/
vim main.tf
coder templates update gcp-linux

Documentation

• About Coder
  • Why remote development
  • Why Coder
  • What Coder is not
  • Comparison: Coder vs. [product]
• Templates
  • Manage templates
  • Persistent and ephemeral resources
  • Parameters
• Workspaces
  • Create workspaces
  • Connect with SSH
  • Editors and IDEs
  • Workspace lifecycle
  • Updating workspaces

Community

Join the community on Discord and Twitter #coder!

Suggest improvements and report problems

Comparison

Please file an issue if any information is out of date. Also refer to: What Coder is not.

Tool	Type	Delivery Model	Cost	Environments
Coder	Platform	OSS + Self-Managed	Pay your cloud	All Terraform resources, all clouds, multi-architecture: Linux, Mac, Windows, containers, VMs, amd64, arm64
code-server	Web IDE	OSS + Self-Managed	Pay your cloud	Linux, Mac, Windows, containers, VMs, amd64, arm64
Coder (Classic)	Platform	Self-Managed	Pay your cloud + license fees	Kubernetes Linux Containers
GitHub Codespaces	Platform	SaaS	2x Azure Compute	Linux containers

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As of 5/27/22

Contributing

Read the contributing docs.

Find our list of contributors here.