Epic: Personalize workspaces from a user-configurable dotfiles repository

[dnsmichi]

Proposal

Provision the environment from a dotfiles repository, e.g. https://gitlab.com/dnsmichi/dotfiles

May need a special entry point in the .gitpod.yml similar to init/tasks: https://www.gitpod.io/docs/config-gitpod-file

Context

Question from @eddiejaoude in the stream at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOrr4r_pNQc

GitHub Codespaces provides this feature: https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/customizing-your-codespace/personalizing-codespaces-for-your-account#dotfiles

Possible Workarounds

Manual commands in .gitpod.yml and automate the setup of a dotfiles repository.

---

More details in the RFC

[dnsmichi]

FYI @gtsiolis @pawlean

[eddiejaoude]

Yes please! This would be amazing 💥

[bigint]

Love to see it ✨

[ghuntley]

This has been heavily discussed internally and yes, we want to do it or help enable someone in the community to do it!

Internal discussion link.

[svenefftinge]

This needs to be a user setting.
I think codespaces did a great job on this and we should implement the same semantics as described here.

The settings should go under a new entry 'Dotfiles'.

[JanKoehnlein]

I'd love to have that as well, but it doesn't currently fit into our schedule. Could you bring this up again later?

[dac09]

Just leaving a suggestion here: I don't think dotfiles should necessarily be provided in the gitpod.yml - because it's highly personal. I'd much prefer to set the dotfiles on my account only, and not force my team to use my dotfiles too :)

[eddiejaoude]

Yep, I would not want my team to have the same dotfiles either, but I would like my dotfiles to load automatically into my gitpod environment - this is similar to CodeSpaces.

[axonasif]

Just leaving a suggestion here: I don't think dotfiles should necessarily be provided in the gitpod.yml - because it's highly personal. I'd much prefer to set the dotfiles on my account only, and not force my team to use my dotfiles too :)

Agreed ;)

[JanKoehnlein]

We're currently still swamped, but this issue will be definitely reconsidered when you bring add it to groundwork again later.

[csweichel]

Filling in some more detail here.

Configuration and user flow

Users would point to a repository in their settings on the dashboard. This needs some visual design @gtsiolis.
When a workspace starts, prior to starting the IDE we'd clone the repo and put it in the home directory. Hence, when the IDE starts it'll pull files like .bashrc and .bash_profile.

API changes

We could add a dotfiles_repo field to the StartWorkspaceSpec API. ws-manager would translate that field to a SUPERVISOR_ env var which supervisor would load as part of its workspace specific configuration.

Implementation

in supervisor prior to starting the IDE we'd run git clone --depth 1 on the dotfile repo, cloning it into $HOME/.dotfiles. Once the clone is complete, we'd symlink the files from the dotfiles repo into the home directory. Compared to moving the files into place, we retain the repository hence folks can make changes to their dotfiles and commit them back.

[csweichel]

/team IDE

[ghuntley]

prior to starting the IDE we'd run git clone --depth 1 on the dotfile repo, cloning it into $HOME/.dotfiles.

👍

Once the clone is complete, we'd symlink the files from the dotfiles repo into the home directory.

Let's follow the lead at https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/customizing-your-codespace/personalizing-codespaces-for-your-account#dotfiles and in our documentation advocate for https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ (and/or the convention documented in the previous link). Thus Gitpod looks for the convention, executes the convention and it's the convention that does the symlink (not Gitpod)

Compared to moving the files into place, we retain the repository hence folks can make changes to their dotfiles and commit them back.

10000% the right choice.

[bigint]

This will support both bitbucket and GitLab right?

[andymac4182]

Will users need to replicate their dotfiles repository into each provider or will you be able to pick which provider to pull from?

I am curious if something like RCM could be used to set up a mix of team and personal preferences. We have team dotfiles that help share around common tasks across the team and also helps as engineers all benefit from this additions easily.

[iQQBot]

mark

[behrica]

What's about "different dot files" per project ?
Maybe I want a different emacs config per project.

So far, I have one, on my computer. (for all projects)

But maybe dev-containers will bring me to "several emacs configurations, different per project.

This might happen, as my current, single, Emacs configuration need to support all languages I work with (and email and an and Emacs = OS).

I would not need that in Emacs in Gitpod.

[csweichel]

More details in the RFC

[andymac4182]

@csweichel Is that meant to be publicly viewable? I can't see that page.

[JanKoehnlein]

Thanks a lot for the PR.

@gtsiolis Please have a look at the dashboard changes. Maybe we need a repo chooser instead of the text field.

[JanKoehnlein]

/schedule

[jldec]

As mentioned in #7337 (comment), I suggest shipping the first MVC PR as a BETA feature with just a text input UI, and later add a repo selection UI via followup issue #7385.

[schickling]

Just wanted drop a (vague) idea here (and maybe it's already possible?):

It would be great if I could persist my VSC settings in a config file/folder which is part of my dotfiles. In my workflow this would replace the MS/GitHub-based settings sync with a more git-centric workflow that could also power GitPod's VSC settings at the same time (related to #3733).

On another note related to dotfiles: Please keep Nix user workflows in mind here (cc @ghuntley)

[loujaybee]

I've added myself as an assignee here @csweichel to reflect IDE teams support / involvement. However, please remove if confusing / you had another idea of yourself as assignee!

[gtsiolis]

Cross-posting from https://github.com/gitpod-io/roadmap/issues/21#issuecomment-1010208934 for visibility:

Hey everyone! FYI, we've recently shipped the first iteration of the .dotfiles support for workspaces, see #5198, #7337, and relevant RFC on how this works. 🔖

It should be relatively straightforward to use this feature. In dashboard /preferences add a repository URL that includes dotfiles. Gitpod will clone and install your dotfiles for every new workspace.

Follow up issues include 🅰️ adding some relevant documentation (gitpod-io/website#1407 Cc @jldec) and 🅱️ improving the user experience of selecting a repository (#7385) from just having a text input for the repository URL. 🗺️

Cc @dnsmichi @behrica @andymac4182 @schickling @eddiejaoude @trumbitta @akosyakov @axonasif @bigint @Milo123459 @PatMyron @nberlette @pawlean @jakehamilton @chyld @michael-bowen-sc @hoegertn @jcdea @brams-dev @kr-anurag @vnys @leodido

[leodido]

Cross-posting from gitpod-io/roadmap#21 (comment) for visibility:

Hey everyone! FYI, we've recently shipped the first iteration of the .dotfiles support for workspaces, see #5198, #7337, and relevant RFC on how this works. 🔖

It should be relatively straightforward to use this feature. In dashboard /preferences add a repository URL that includes dotfiles. Gitpod will clone and install your dotfiles for every new workspace.

Follow up issues include 🅰️ adding some relevant documentation (gitpod-io/website#1407 Cc @jldec) and 🅱️ improving the user experience of selecting a repository (#7385) from just having a text input for the repository URL. 🗺️

Cc @dnsmichi @behrica @andymac4182 @schickling @eddiejaoude @trumbitta @akosyakov @axonasif @bigint @Milo123459 @PatMyron @nberlette @pawlean @jakehamilton @chyld @michael-bowen-sc @hoegertn @JcdeA @brams-dev @kr-anurag @vnys @leodido

Lovely to see this finally come to life! 💟
Congrats all!

[gtsiolis]

@zpthree yes, you're right! We've opened a follow up issue to also support private repositories in #7565 and there's already a fix on the way from @iQQBot in #7569.

[zpthree]

@gtsiolis awesome! looks like my comment got deleted somehow so for anyone seeing this i was just saying that it looks like the dotfiles repo needs to be public.