Configure Dev Environments

Last modified: 07 November 2024

Dev environment template

Before users can start working on a project in remote dev environments, the namespace administrator should create a dev environment template.

A dev environment template is a set of predefined settings used as a basis for creating the environments. The template defines: a dev environment image, an IDE, resources, a Git repository and branch, and other settings.

When users create a dev environment, they can choose from the templates available for their account.

Selecting a template in Gateway

Create a template

  1. Find the namespace in which you want to create a template.

  2. In the sidebar namespace menu, select Templates and click New template.

  3. Specify basic settings:

    Basic settings

    • Name – a name for the template. Try to make it descriptive and include the project name in it – in JetBrains Gateway users choose from the unsorted list of all templates available for their account.

    • Repositories – Git repositories with the project sources.

      If you have multiple repositories, you can add them using the dropdown list. Note that currently, it is not possible to use different IDEs for different repositories. On dev environment start, repository roots will be opened in different tabs of the same IDE specified in the template. If needed, you can redefine the project root in Project roots.

    • Instance type – a dev environment instance type (CPU, memory, disk). The list of available instance types is defined by the system administrator. Learn more

    • IDE and IDE Version – an IDE and its version that will be used to open the project sources. If you leave Default as an IDE version, the system will use the version specified as default by the system administrator. Learn more

  4. Click Create.

  5. Specify other template settings.

    Create a template
    Project settings

    • Checkout branches – the branch that CodeCanvas must check out from the project repository. In the case of multiple repositories, you can specify a branch for each repository.

    • Project roots – by default, the project root is the repository root. Here you can specify alternative project root locations (relative to the repository roots). This might be helpful for mono-repositories which include multiple projects.

      After a user starts a dev environment, the IDE opens a project root directory. In the case of multiple repositories, the IDE opens all project roots.

    • IDE plugins – a list of plugins that will be installed in the IDE. Specify the plugin ID as it appears in the JetBrains Marketplace. Learn more

    • Environment variables – a list of environment variables that will be set in the dev environment. Plain text values only. Use it to pass non-sensitive data, e.g., URLs, paths, or various configuration settings. For sensitive data, use personal parameters.

    Startup performance

    You can speed up the startup of dev environments based on this template with:

    • Warm-up – a process of pre-building data for a dev environment. Learn more

    • Standby pool – a pool of running dev environments that are ready to be used. Learn more

    Personal parameters

    A list of environment variables and files with sensitive personal data required for development, e.g., user credentials, API keys, and so on. Learn more

    Access

    Define who can use this template to create dev environments:

    • Only selected users – explicitly specify users who can use this template.

      Even if a user is not in the list, they can still view and use templates in the namespace if they fall under one of the following categories:

      • System administrators

      • Namespace administrators of this namespace

      • Users with the Manage all repository connections and Manage all dev environment templates permissions in this namespace

      This refers only to the CodeCanvas user interface. They won't see these templates in the JetBrains Gateway.

    • All users (conditions apply) – all CodeCanvas users can use this template.

      If All users (conditions apply) is selected, any user in CodeCanvas can create a dev environment and view the Git repository contents. They can do this even if they don't have access to the repository on the Git server. To prevent this, you can restrict access to the Git repository using the repository's Read restrictions setting. Learn more

    Lifecycle

    • Lifecycle scripts – shell scripts that run at a certain stage of the dev environment lifecycle. Learn more

    • Auto-stop – automatically stop dev environments on specific conditions, e.g., after a certain period of inactivity. Learn more

    Advanced

    • SSH – if enabled, users can connect to dev environments using SSH.

    • VM options – configuration options of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that runs the IDE. For example, you can increase the heap size allocated for the IDE, e.g., -Xms2048m, -Xmx4096m.

    • Dev container image – a Docker image for a dev environment container. If you don't provide a custom image, CodeCanvas uses the default image. Learn more

    • Cloud policy – a policy that defines access to cloud resources, e.g., a database in Amazon RDS, a storage in Amazon S3, and so on. All the required credentials will be automatically injected into the dev environment. A system administrator can define cloud policies for the namespace. Learn more

    • IDE settings – a set of predefined personal IDE settings that will be applied to the IDE in the dev environment. Learn more

  6. Click Save or Save and run dev environment to save the template and quickly create a dev environment based on it.