GitHub Codespaces

Run the container in the browser or in your desktop editor, with nothing installed locally.

GitHub Codespaces runs a Dev Container on GitHub’s infrastructure and attaches an editor to it. This repository ships several configurations, so you can pick the Quarto version before the Codespace is created.

Create a Codespace

  1. Open mcanouil/quarto-codespaces on GitHub.
  2. Click the green Code button, then the Codespaces tab.
  3. Click Create codespace on main, or reuse an existing one from the list.
  4. Wait for the container to start; the configuration in the repository is applied automatically.

The default configuration is .devcontainer/devcontainer.json, which pulls the latest image and installs the Quarto stable release.

Choose a different configuration

The repository provides configurations for the universal base image, the Quarto prerelease, and every Quarto minor version, 1.0 … 1.10. They are listed in full on the configurations page.

From a URL

Append devcontainer_path to a codespaces.new URL, percent-encoding the path separators:

https://codespaces.new/mcanouil/quarto-codespaces?quickstart=1&devcontainer_path=.devcontainer%2Funiversal%2Fdevcontainer.json
https://codespaces.new/mcanouil/quarto-codespaces?quickstart=1&devcontainer_path=.devcontainer%2Fquarto-prerelease%2Fdevcontainer.json

From the Codespaces interface

  1. Click Code, then the Codespaces tab, then the … menu.
  2. Choose New with options….
  3. Select the configuration from the Dev container configuration dropdown.
  4. Click Create codespace.

Manage storage

Codespaces storage is billed against your account quota, and the purpose-built image is large because it carries R, Python, Julia, TinyTeX, and Chromium. If quota matters more than start-up time, use the universal configuration: it builds on mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/universal:latest, which GitHub already caches for Codespaces.

Deleting a Codespace you no longer need frees its storage immediately.

Prebuilds

Codespaces prebuilds are configured in the repository settings rather than in a committed file. When a prebuild is available for a configuration, GitHub labels it in the creation dialog and the Codespace starts in seconds instead of minutes.

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