Getting a nice-flowing docker dev setup

[LavissaWoW]

I'm having some internittent struggles getting a proper flowing dev setup working...
My main dev setup involves Windows, as that's what my home PC has. Linux will be intermittently used when I have time during work hours. (I don't suspect I'll have issues there)

Notes:

• Windows
• VS Code
• Docker
• Extra WSL terminal for grep etc

Now, I've set up such that I clone from my fork down to my machine using Windows CMD, as that's where I have my ssh key.
Then I set up InvenTree dev on Docker via the docker compose [...] update / setup-dev / up -d / superpuser commands in that order (In the Windows CMD).

Now, we're in a bit of a pickle. I don't want to create SSH keys for docker containers that might be terminated at any time. So I can't set up the docker to do commit/push/pull in any easy fashion.
Venv is accessible via WSL (as the docker image does not set up a Windows activate.bat), but triggers permission denied when run via the docker terminal. Venv in WSL is however not privvy to installed packages on the docker, so can't execute invokes.

I attempted a setup using the supplied config for VSCode devcontainer, and while that works 80%, it still won't cooperate with git. Additionally, the VSCode terminal sometimes freezes in devcontainer, and I'm forced to restart VSCode. Additionally, additionally, I dislike having to wait for the container to boot, load etc every time I open VSCode.

Atm, my workflow is:

• VSCode with many, many warnings of nonexistent django packages
• VSCode does have git tracking in this mode, which I like to have
• To use pre-commit, I have to issue commits in WSL with pre-commit installed
• Then re-issue said commit in Windows with --no-verify due to ssh keys.

Any tips or tricks to achieve a more coherent workflow?

[SchrodingersGat]

@LavissaWoW have you followed the docker development guide? This is exactly how my development setup is configured, I'm running on Windows too.

I edit in vscode but have the containers managed through docker desktop. With the vscode terminal I can oversee the containers (e.g. docker compose run inventree-dev-server invoke migrate)

[wolflu05]

I think there is a much easier way to get gpg keys and git config working in a devcontainer with vscode than getting it working in a normally used container, but I didn't spend that much time to come up with something working generically and not hacky.

Every docker compose run inventree-dev-server [command] generates a new inventree-dev-server container which never gets used again after executing its command and exiting (At least locally on my computer). As a result, the list of containers under inventree in Docker Desktop grows for each run. docker compose run --rm [...] will alleivate this, as the command container will be deleted upon completion.

You can use docker-compose exec to get a shell into an already runny container.

[LavissaWoW]

@wolflu05 I absolutely presume there's a way to use exec instead of run, though I'm not gonna research it rn.
I quickly tried running docker compose exec inventree-dev-server invoke test in place of docker compose run inventree-dev-server invoke test, and that immediately went into "module django not found" where the latter command executes what you want, but ofc creates a new throwaway container.

For the install process, we don't have any running containers yet, so it makes sense to use run --rm to purge these containers imo.

[SchrodingersGat]

Good point about --rm - we should update the docs for some of the commands

[wolflu05]

@SchrodingersGat See #4743 (comment) for a discussion why we shouldn't do that.

[SchrodingersGat]

@wolflu05 yep thanks I found that comment thread after this one :)

[SchrodingersGat]

@LavissaWoW please keep us posted if you come up with any improvements to the workflow

[wolflu05]

@LavissaWoW May you can take a look at #4787 - I tried to document the devcontainer workflow there.

[LavissaWoW]

I'll give it a whirl