repos

Manage multiple Git repositories automatically

Install the repos CLI tool to manage multiple Git repositories. Optionally runs repos setup when the container starts to clone repositories defined in repos.list.

Example Usage

{
  "image": "mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/base:ubuntu",
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/MiguelRodo/DevContainerFeatures/repos:2": {}
  }
}

With automatic setup on container start:

{
  "features": {
    "ghcr.io/MiguelRodo/DevContainerFeatures/repos:2": {
      "runOnStart": true
    }
  }
}

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
runOnStart	boolean	false	Automatically run repos setup when the container starts.

Key Features

Automatic Repository Cloning

• Clones all repositories specified in the repos.list file on container creation or start.
• Supports custom target clone directories per repository.
• Adds repositories to the VS Code workspace automatically.

Git Authentication

Sets up Git credential helpers for GitHub and Hugging Face by modifying the system gitconfig. Authentication tokens are sourced from environment variables:

Service	Environment Variable	Fallback
GitHub	GH_TOKEN	GITHUB_TOKEN
Hugging Face	HF_TOKEN	HUGGINGFACE_TOKEN

Flexible Repository Formats

The repos.list file supports multiple formats:

# GitHub repositories
owner/repo
owner/repo@branch

# Hugging Face datasets
datasets/owner/repo
datasets/owner/repo@branch

# Full URLs
https://host/owner/repo
https://host/owner/repo@branch

# With an explicit target directory
owner2/repo2@develop ./Projects/Repo2

Installation and Usage

Create a Repository List File

Create a repos.list file in your devcontainer:

# Example repositories
owner1/repo1
owner2/repo2@develop ./Projects/Repo2
datasets/owner3/dataset1 ../Datasets
https://gitlab.com/owner4/repo4@feature-branch ./GitLabRepos

Lines starting with # are treated as comments. Empty lines are ignored. Each line can optionally include a target directory where the repository will be cloned.

Set Up Authentication Tokens

Set the following environment variables before building or starting the container:

• GitHub: GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN
• Hugging Face: HF_TOKEN or HUGGINGFACE_TOKEN

For GitHub Codespaces, add these as repository secrets under Settings → Codespaces → Secrets.

Rebuild Your DevContainer

After updating devcontainer.json, rebuild the container via the VS Code Command Palette → Dev Containers: Rebuild Container.

Commands Provided

repos-git-clone

Clones repositories listed in a specified file.

repos-git-clone [-f|--file <file>]

• -f, --file <file>: Repository list file. Defaults to repos.list.

repos-workspace-add

Adds cloned repositories to the VS Code workspace file.

repos-workspace-add [-f|--file <file>]

• -f, --file <file>: Repository list file. Defaults to repos.list.

repos-git-auth-gitconfig

Sets up Git credential helpers for GitHub and Hugging Face.

repos-git-auth-gitconfig

repos-hf-install

Installs Hugging Face CLI and Git LFS.

repos-hf-install [--hf-scope <system|user>]

• --hf-scope: Install scope for the Hugging Face CLI (system or user). Default is system.

Notes

• Installed via the apt-miguelrodo APT repository on Debian/Ubuntu; compiled from source on Alpine.
• The repos.list file supports comments (lines starting with #) and ignores empty lines.
• Particularly useful in GitHub Codespaces or similar cloud development environments.

Source

src/repos