Remote development

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Introduced in GitLab 15.4 with a flag named vscode_web_ide. Disabled by default.

Enabled on GitLab.com in GitLab 15.7.

Enabled on self-managed in GitLab 15.11.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is available. To hide the feature, an administrator can disable the feature flag named vscode_web_ide. On GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated, this feature is available. This feature is not ready for production use.

You can use remote development to write and compile code hosted on GitLab. With remote development, you can:

Create a secure development environment in the cloud.
Connect to that environment from your local machine through a web browser or client-based solution.

Web IDE as a frontend

You can use the Web IDE to make, commit, and push changes to a project directly from your web browser. This way, you can update any project without having to install any dependencies or clone any repositories locally.

The Web IDE, however, lacks a native runtime environment where you could compile code, run tests, or generate real-time feedback. With remote development, you can use:

The Web IDE as a frontend
A separate machine as a backend runtime environment

For a complete IDE experience, connect the Web IDE to a development environment configured to run as a remote host. You can create this environment outside of GitLab.

Manage a development environment

Create a development environment

To create a development environment, run this command:

export CERTS_DIR="/home/ubuntu/.certbot/config/live/${DOMAIN}"
export PROJECTS_DIR="/home/ubuntu"

docker run -d \
  --name my-environment \
  -p 3443:3443 \
  -v "${CERTS_DIR}/fullchain.pem:/gitlab-rd-web-ide/certs/fullchain.pem" \
  -v "${CERTS_DIR}/privkey.pem:/gitlab-rd-web-ide/certs/privkey.pem" \
  -v "${PROJECTS_DIR}:/projects" \
  registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/remote-development/gitlab-rd-web-ide-docker:0.2-alpha \
  --log-level warn --domain "${DOMAIN}" --ignore-version-mismatch

The new development environment starts automatically.

Stop a development environment

To stop a running development environment, run this command:

docker container stop my-environment

Start a development environment

To start a stopped development environment, run this command:

docker container start my-environment

The token changes every time you start the development environment.

Remove a development environment

To remove a development environment:

Stop the development environment.
Run this command:
```
docker container rm my-environment
```