Devcontainers from your favorite IDE, in one click

crib-vscode is a VS Code and Cursor extension that wraps crib — a thin, opinionated CLI for "just enough devcontainers" — and gives it a one-click flow inside your editor.

Open a project, press a key, and you get a fully provisioned devcontainer with your editor attached. No devcontainer.json ceremony, no waiting for the IDE to rebuild, no losing your current window.

What it is

The project ships as two extensions:

crib-vscode-main — the main extension. It runs as extensionKind: ["workspace"], so it lives where your files and the crib CLI are: the same machine for a local window, or the remote for a Remote‑SSH window. It provides the Workspaces tree, the lifecycle/attach commands, and writes the Dev Containers nameConfig that attach actually reads.
crib-vscode-attach-bridge — a tiny companion that runs as extensionKind: ["ui"], i.e. on the machine showing your editor window.

Why the split? Dev Containers' "Attach to Running Container" is a UI‑host command — it is only registered on the machine running the editor window, never on a Remote‑SSH host. When the main extension is running on a remote, it has no attach command to call. The bridge exposes one (crib.attachViaUiHost) on the UI host so the remote can hand attach off to it. This is why any Remote‑SSH setup needs the bridge — VS Code and Cursor alike.

Requirements

VS Code 1.105+ or Cursor
Dev Containers extension, on the UI host, where attach runs:
- VS Code: ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers
- Cursor: anysphere.remote-containers
crib on PATH (or set crib.path)
Docker or Podman on the workspace host

Install

Both extensions are published to the Visual Studio Marketplace and Open VSX:

Main: rightright-me.crib-vscode-main
Bridge: rightright-me.crib-vscode-attach-bridge

Install from the Extensions view. In a Remote‑SSH window the view offers "Install in SSH: …" for the remote and a local install for the UI host — make sure each extension lands on the right side per the matrix below.

Install matrix

workspace host = machine running your files / the crib command. UI host = machine showing the editor window.

Scenario	`crib-vscode-main`	`crib-vscode-attach-bridge`
Local folder window	UI host (same machine)	Not required
Remote‑SSH — VS Code or Cursor	Workspace host (remote)	UI host (local) — required
WSL / attached‑container	Workspace host	UI host (local) — required for attach

For a local window the main extension and the Dev Containers extension are on the same machine, so attach is direct and the bridge is unnecessary. Any time the main extension runs on a different host than the editor window (Remote‑SSH, WSL), install the bridge locally too.

Usage

The extension contributes a Workspaces view (look for Crib in the activity bar / Remote Explorer) listing the crib containers it can see. Right‑click a row for actions, or run any command from the Command Palette:

Command	What it does
`crib.up`	Bring the container up (`crib up`)
`crib.attach`	Sync the nameConfig and attach the editor to the container
`crib.down`	Stop the container
`crib.restart`	Restart the container
`crib.rebuild`	Rebuild the container
`crib.remove`	Remove the container and its nameConfig
`crib.syncNow`	Sync nameConfigs from `devcontainer.json`
`crib.openConfig`	Open the generated nameConfig
`crib.openDevcontainerJson`	Open the project's `devcontainer.json`
`crib.refresh`	Refresh the Workspaces view
`crib.focusOutput`	Show the Crib output log

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`crib.path`	`"crib"`	Path to the `crib` executable. Defaults to looking it up on `PATH`.
`crib.autoUpOnAttach`	`true`	When attaching, automatically run `crib up` if the workspace's container is not running.
`crib.extraExtensions`	`[]`	Extra extension IDs to install on every attached crib container, in addition to those in `devcontainer.json`.
`crib.includeFeatureExtensions`	`true`	Merge `customizations.vscode.extensions` contributed by devcontainer features (from the image's `devcontainer.metadata` label, with a best‑effort OCI manifest fetch fallback).
`crib.featureManifestFetch`	`true`	Allow fetching feature manifests from OCI registries when the image is not yet built. Disable for fully offline environments.
`crib.forwardSshAgent`	`true`	Forward `SSH_AUTH_SOCK` to the `crib` subprocess so its `ssh` plugin can bind‑mount the agent socket into the container. Set to `false` if `crib up`/`rebuild` fails with `invalid mount config … permission denied` because the agent socket is unreadable.

Troubleshooting

"Install the Crib Attach Bridge" when attaching over Remote‑SSH

This is expected when the bridge isn't installed on your local machine. Over Remote‑SSH the main extension runs on the remote, where no Dev Containers attach command exists, so attach is routed to the UI‑host bridge command — which only exists if crib-vscode-attach-bridge is installed locally.

Fix: install rightright-me.crib-vscode-attach-bridge on your local machine, reload the window, and retry attach.

Diagnose: open the Crib output channel (crib.focusOutput). On attach it logs the resolved route, e.g. [attach] target=uiBridge. At startup it also logs whether a Dev Containers extension is present but its attach command isn't registered on the current host — useful for confirming why the bridge path was taken.

Key features

One-click up, attach, and down — three commands, no configuration files required
Works in VS Code and Cursor — the companion bridge makes both editors' Remote‑SSH attach flow reliable
Wraps crib, doesn't replace it — you keep the CLI for everything else
Multi-root workspace aware — picks the right container for the active workspace
Output channel logging — see exactly what's happening, no black box
Open source — TypeScript, MIT-licensed, contributions welcome

Crib Extension

rightright-me