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February 14, 2022

New workspace images built with Dazzle v2

By default, your Gitpod workspaces are based on a Docker image called gitpod/workspace-full. It contains all sorts of tools, SDKs and languages you may need — so you are ready-to-code with no friction.

What if you were only interested in Rust though, or Node.js LTS? You could create a custom Dockerfile, tell Gitpod about it and all would be fine. It would even be pretty simple to do.

At Gitpod, we are all about removing friction and frequently ask ourselves, “How can we improve?“. So we came up with an even easier solution. We are now in a position to create much more fine-grained workspace images!

To start this next era, we recently built a whole bunch of new images with Dazzle v2. Dazzle is a Docker/OCI image builder and its goal is to build independent layers where a change to one layer does not invalidate the ones sitting “above” it.

Compared to the previous version of Dazzle, the new v2 is about 5x faster, more reliable and less hacky 🔨.

Here is a list of what you can use today:

  • gitpod/workspace-c
  • gitpod/workspace-clojure
  • gitpod/workspace-go
  • gitpod/workspace-node
  • gitpod/workspace-node-lts
  • gitpod/workspace-python
  • gitpod/workspace-ruby-2
  • gitpod/workspace-ruby-3
  • gitpod/workspace-rust

For an up-to-date list of available images, please refer to this list.

In your .gitpod.yml, all you need to do is add the following line:

language icon language: 
yml
image: gitpod/workspace-xyz

As if this wasn’t exciting enough, this new solution lays the foundation for some very cool features you will be able to leverage directly to create custom images for your workspaces.

To tease this a bit more, imagine a future where you can pick & choose which tools you’d like to install in your workspace and Gitpod will automagically provide them to you at lightspeed, or thereabouts.

We are interested in your feedback and suggestions, please let us know in our dedicated feedback issue or chat with us.

@csweichel's avatar on GitHub @princerachit's avatar on GitHub @kylos101's avatar on GitHub

Fixes and improvements

  • #8119 - Added support for Git LFS during content init @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @kylos101's avatar on GitHub
  • #8134 - Enable id check for seccomp notify @Furisto's avatar on GitHub @utam0k's avatar on GitHub
  • #8139 - Improved workspace memory-pressure eviction resilience @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @sagor999's avatar on GitHub
  • #8161 - Add workspace start request debug logging to ws-manager @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @sagor999's avatar on GitHub
  • #8179 - A bit of improvements to cache_reclaim @sagor999's avatar on GitHub @utam0k's avatar on GitHub
  • #8132 - [GitHub] Fix the user account picked for a prebuild. @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jldec's avatar on GitHub @svenefftinge's avatar on GitHub
  • #8143 - Update code to 1.64.2 @filiptronicek's avatar on GitHub @jeanp413's avatar on GitHub
  • #8112 - Autofix: upgrade-nvm-tools @autofix-bot's avatar on GitHub @felladrin's avatar on GitHub @iQQBot's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #8099 - fix dashboard contextURL handling @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub @akosyakov's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #7569 - Support private dotfiles repo @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @gtsiolis's avatar on GitHub @iQQBot's avatar on GitHub @mustard-mh's avatar on GitHub
  • #8100 - Make ContextURL.parseToURL support the newly-accepted git@[host]:[user]/[repo].git format @akosyakov's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #8036 - Refactor dynamic CPU limiting to provide fairer scheduling. @corneliusludmann's avatar on GitHub @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @sagor999's avatar on GitHub @utam0k's avatar on GitHub
  • #8093 - Fix wrong token selection if multiple found for a profile. @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #7715 - [server][dashboard] Improve ‘New Workspace’ modal with a search input, keyboard navigation, and a new context URL suggestion API @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub @filiptronicek's avatar on GitHub @gtsiolis's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub @jldec's avatar on GitHub @svenefftinge's avatar on GitHub
  • #7833 - Fix Bitbucket push event handling @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @gtsiolis's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #8073 - configure basic rate-limiting for `startWorkspace @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #7727 - [installer]: add jaeger sampling options to the tracing object @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub @MrSimonEmms's avatar on GitHub @aledbf's avatar on GitHub @corneliusludmann's avatar on GitHub @kylos101's avatar on GitHub @sagor999's avatar on GitHub
  • #7923 - Improved in-transit security of user environment variables @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @akosyakov's avatar on GitHub @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #7968 - Fix missing status updates for prebuilds. @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @laushinka's avatar on GitHub
  • #7940 - reduce idle DB load on SH installations @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @geropl's avatar on GitHub
  • #7978 - [gitlab] user-scoped env vars can now be filtered for nested repos on Gitlab @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub
  • #7882 - Admins can do a text search for projects and their associated prebuilds. @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub @gtsiolis's avatar on GitHub @jldec's avatar on GitHub @laushinka's avatar on GitHub
  • #7951 - [server] Support ‘git@[host]:[user]/[repo].git’ format in context URLs @AlexTugarev's avatar on GitHub @JanKoehnlein's avatar on GitHub @jankeromnes's avatar on GitHub
  • #7839 - [installer]: put component ownership under webapp/workspace teams @MrSimonEmms's avatar on GitHub @aledbf's avatar on GitHub @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @kylos101's avatar on GitHub @princerachit's avatar on GitHub
  • #7926 - [wa-manager] Refactor connectToWorkspaceDaemon helper @aledbf's avatar on GitHub @csweichel's avatar on GitHub @utam0k's avatar on GitHub