Roblox/Rojo for Dev Containers - Start developing instantly on any device

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#1

Dev Container Roblox Template & Rojo Feature

This expects you use Rojo to develop and you are using GitHub to host your code (for GitHub Codespaces). You are also expected to know the basics of developing using third-party tools.

You ever want to script on Roblox but you don’t have the proper device or want to set everything up? Then the Roblox Dev Container Template is for you.

  • Runs on any device in the browser (even phones)
  • No need to manually install tools or packages
  • Very fast setup and time to start developing

Either using GitHub Codespaces or Visual Studio Code Dev Containers, your development environment is automatically setup for your project, so you can get programming as fast as possible.

Some use cases include:

  • Onboarding new scripters and collaborating together using Live Share without needing to spend time installing the proper tools
  • Allowing people to easily contribute to your project and test their changes on their machine
  • Making fast changes to your code when your main development machine is not available or you don’t have access to a powerful machine.

Explanation

Dev containers allow developers to develop on their machines locally or remotely in a isolated container, separate from their development device. What dev containers do is create a separate development environment (kind of like a VM) with everything you need to have setup. A dev container configuration tells how to setup your project and all the tools you need for your project (i.e. install Aftman tools, Wally packages, etc.)

This resource contains:

  • A dev container template for a basic Rojo-managed Roblox project with VSCode extensions, ready to be used in your project
  • A dev container feature responsible for installing Rojo, Aftman, and their proper dependencies to run

Prerequisites

This resource expects you know the following tools:

Examples

This dev container configuration is used in the following repositories:

Test our how you can instantly get started coding, with all your tools, extensions, and more pre-installed and ready-to-use.

Repositories

Below are the appropriate repositories for the template and feature, all with their own documentation and instructions on how to use and install.

Dev Container Template

Dev Container Feature

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#2

Hey all, we’re starting to work on support for multiple toolchain managers, most notably Foreman and Rokit, which have been highly requested.

I don’t have an exact ETA for this to ship but it should be this year. This WILL BE a breaking change so you might need to update your .devcontainer.json files once this comes out and you want to update.

If you would like to track progress, you can refer to the GitHub issue below.

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#3

Support for Rokit and Foreman is now out

You can now choose between Rokit and Foreman along with Aftman now for your toolchain managers for the ryanlua/features/rojo feature. Additionally, some changes have been made to the format and template.

  • The installAftman key has been replaced by toolchainManager. See the README for details on which values are supported.
  • The default toolchain manager has been changed from Aftman to Rokit for its compatibility for aftman.toml and foreman.toml files along with its own.
  • Any pinned versions to latest will no longer function properly with these changes to its format. The template now uses a pinned version instead (currently at 0.2.0) so issues like this don’t occur in the future.

Please take your time to review the documentation since they are some major breaking changes in this release. Sorry, this took a while to get out, I tried my best not to break stuff with this release and make it as stable as possible. If any issues occur, consider opening an issue in the repo.

#4

Kohl’s Admin to adapt Dev Containers

Kohl’s Admin is one of the first to fully adapt this project for contributing and development. Learn about how your can make your projects easy to contribute and work on.

  • Build & serve documentation with no effort
  • Develop with Rojo without installing Rojo or VS Code
  • Make contributions from within the browser

Dev containers make it easy for anyone to work on Kohl’s Admin. That’s why using dev containers in GitHub Codespaces is one of the official ways to contribute to Kohl’s Admin.

Later on, you will not need a project to support dev containers to be able to work in it from dev containers, including your favorite tools like Luau LSP, StyLua, Selene, and whatever else you have in your toolkit.

#5

Try Roblox on Development Containers

We now have a template repository you can create your GitHub Codespace or Dev Container to try Roblox development. This template allows you to test out developing on Roblox using Rojo in a dev container on the web.

  • Try Rojo in a dev container to build and sync projects
  • Code completely on the web or even mobile
  • Use as reference for adding dev containers to your project
1 Like