New repo template

This is a template repository for starting a new project with using dotfiles with workflow in devcontainer for VS Code.

Quick start

Template/fork and use as is or replace dotfiles in Dockerfile

Project goals

1. Keep all the things in insolation from the host machine
2. Have a way to run the project on any machine with the same config
3. Ability to easily re-create the environment on a new local or remote machine
4. Safely try any VSCode based editor

notes:

• Microsoft limit access to VSCode marketplace, but extensions installation from other sources is still in place, meaning that you can config your editor of choice with extensions listing them in devcontainer.json using VSCode extension marketplace.

Environment Variables

TL;DR: For use local .env file for project related variables, for shared between different projects AND for MCP's use ~./.devcontainer/.env.devcontainer.

Loading order

• containerEnv section of the devcontainer.json with build env vars.

• remoteEnv section of the devcontainer.json with runtime env vars.

• [optional] global env file on the host machine in ~/.devcontainer/.env.devcontainer file

• [optional] project .env file, which is excluded from git and used for secrets

Used env variables

• [optional] GOOGLE_AI_STUDIO_API_KEY - used by aicommit2, should contain Google AI Studio API key

MCP servers management

In order to be able to manage not only MCP servers but also the tools which are provided by them was introduced metamcp. It allows to turn off the redundant tools using web interface.

Note: The metamcp can be run in the devcontainer docker compose, but for now it seems to be an overkill. On the other hand local docker setup does not require any auth concerns.

PRD Template

This repository includes a template for creating Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) located at docs/templates/prd.md. This template is designed to be used by replacing the {{prd_instructions}} placeholder within the file with a description of the specific product or feature for which you want to create a PRD.

To do so you can use the following command to AI assistant to generate the PRD:

Use the template at `docs/templates/prd.md` to create a PRD for the product but
before you MUST replace `{{prd_instructions}}` with instructions given below.
Then use the updated template to create a PRD for the product. The result must
be saved in the file `docs/prd.md`

INSTRUCTIONS:

...

tested with: gemini-2.5-flash-preview-04-17 and Roo code 3.13

Extras

• Consistent git commit messages generation with aicommit2 and VSCode following conventional commit message format
• mitmproxy (optional) integration, that allows to intercept and/or substitute responses from other services (local MitM), details
• There is a shared folder from outside of the project workspace ~/.devcontainer/shared that is forwarded to /workspace/shared path. This path is ignored from git

References

The original boilerplate was from from this MS repo

Other boilerplates

• https://github.com/jsburckhardt/getting-started

Useful links

• Dev containers schema
• Dev containers features