Validate Dev Container Configuration

A GitHub Action to validate Dev Container configuration. This action can check for required Visual Studio Code extensions, validate task configuration and check for required features in devcontainer.json files.

Features

• Validates presence of required Visual Studio Code extensions in devcontainer.json
• Optional validation of common development tasks (build, test, run)
• Customizable devcontainer.json path
• Configurable extension requirements
• Validates presence of required devcontainer features in devcontainer.json

Usage

Steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4

  - name: Validate Dev Container
    uses: chrisreddington/[email protected]
    with:
      # Required Visual Studio Code extensions (comma-separated)
      required-extensions: 'GitHub.codespaces,GitHub.vscode-github-actions'

      # Optional: Path to devcontainer.json
      devcontainer-path: '.devcontainer/devcontainer.json'

      # Optional: Enable task validation
      validate-tasks: 'true'

      # Optional: Required devcontainer features (comma-separated)
      required-features: 'ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/github-cli:1,ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/prettier:1'

Inputs

Input	Description	Required	Default
required-extensions	Comma-separated list of required Visual Studio Code extensions	Yes	GitHub.codespaces,github.vscode-github-actions,GitHub.copilot,GitHub.copilot-chat,github.copilot-workspace,GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github,GitHub.remotehub,GitHub.vscode-codeql
devcontainer-path	Path to devcontainer.json file	No	.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
validate-tasks	Enable validation of build, test, and run tasks	No	false
required-features	Comma-separated list of required devcontainer features	No

Extension Validation

The action checks for the presence of the required extensions in the required-extensions input. The input is a comma-separated list of extension IDs. The action checks for the presence of each extension in the devcontainer.json file.

Task Validation

When validate-tasks is set to true, the action checks for the following required tasks in devcontainer.json:

• build
• test
• run

Each task must be defined as a string value.

Feature Validation

The action checks for the presence of the required features in the required-features input. The input is a comma-separated list of feature IDs. The action checks for the presence of each feature in the devcontainer.json file.

Example devcontainer.json

{
  "customizations": {
    "vscode": {
      "extensions": ["GitHub.codespaces", "GitHub.vscode-github-actions"]
    }
  },
  "tasks": {
    "build": "npm run build",
    "test": "npm test",
    "run": "npm start"
  },
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/github-cli:1": {},
    "ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/prettier:1": {}
  }
}

Development

1. Install dependencies: npm install

2. Run tests: npm test

3. Build the action: npm run bundle

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.