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Customizing various Dev Container settings

Last modified: 27 March 2025

Customizing devcontainer.json file

You can customize devcontainer.json file by adding the required settings, plugins, and so on.

Add modified settings

  1. Open the devcontainer.json file in the editor.

  2. In the left gutter, click Create Dev Container, select Add Modified Settings from IDE.

    The settings are added as a customizations section. It might be useful if you want to synchronize both settings or choose some other customization option.

    JSON file customizations section

    You can also add the non-default application-level settings, modify the added settings options, sort them, or add properties from the JSON schema. Press AltEnter in the settings section of the devcontainer.json file and select the appropriate option.

    JSON settings

You can also install plugins from the JetBrains marketplace to a Dev Container.

Add plugins

  1. Open JetBrains marketplace in the browser.

  2. Locate the required plugin and open the plugin page.

  3. On the plugin page, scroll down to the Additional information section and copy plugin ID.

  4. Open the devcontainer.json file in the editor.

  5. Inside the customizations section, add the following code: 

    {
    "customizations": {
        "jetbrains": {
            "plugins": [
                "org.intellij.plugins.hcl"
            ]
        }
    }
}

    The pluginID is the ID of the required plugin from JetBrains marketplace, for example, org.intellij.plugins.hcl.

Copy local Git settings

You do not need to additionally configure Git settings inside a Dev Container. The Git settings are automatically added to a Dev Container from your local global .gitconfig file.

To check the settings inside the Dev Container, do the following

  1. In the Services tool window, select Docker | Dev Containers and the necessary container.

  2. Start the container by clicking the Start button.

  3. Click and select Show Files.

  4. Select .gitconfig in the list of the files.

    The following settings are copied if available:

    user.email,
user.name,
pull.rebase,
alias.*

    The alias.* option means all the alias settings.

    note

    Git needs to be available on both the user machine where the container is built and in the target Dev Container.