A docker container enabled in VS Code as a Development Container focused on developing Twilio with JavaScript and Python.
Include in the container are the following features:
- Debian Buster environment with Node 10.x
- Global node packages - twilio-cli, twilio-run, create-twilio-function, eslint
- twilio-cli plugins - @twilio-labs/plugin-serverless
- twilio-cli bash autocomplete
- Python - virtualenv, debugpy
- Persist bash history between runs](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers-advanced#_persist-bash-history-between-runs)
- Root .env file becomes environment variables for the container
- Sample JS / Python scripts using environment variables to query Twilio incoming phone numbers
- VS Code launch.json settings for attaching debugger to Javascript / Python
- VS Code extensions for JavaScript and Python Development
- scratch folder shared with host system, but not source controlled via git
The following ports are exposed by the container:
- 4040 - ngrok web interface
- 5566 - twilio-run port
- 5858 - node inspector debug port
- 5678 - debugpy debug port
VS Code documentation provides a handy guide to get started at - Developing inside a Container. To provide a quick break down you will need to install the following:
- Docker 2.x+ (Windows/macOS) or Docker CE/EE 18.06+
- VS Code
- Remote Development extension pack
The purpose of this repository is to use VS Code with the extension for Remote Containers and use the new command Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container. This will build and configure an environment with VS Code extensions and settings to do some light development with Twilio in JavaScript/Python and have access to twilio-cli. It is useful to grab account credentials including ACCOUNT_SID and AUTH_TOKEN or API_KEY and API_SECRET.
Code is persisted on the host system so after the container exits it is still available.
The node packages installed are not targeting specific verisions (excluding sample code) so it is possible to rebuild the container using the Command Palette (F1) via Remote-Containers: Rebuild Container which will force a rebuild of the base image.
To use a node version later than 10.x make changes to the root Dockerfile choose a supported tag from dockerhub - https://hub.docker.com/_/node. It is best to stick with Debian distributions (non-slim) or a system using bash as the primary shell.
Dockerfile examples
FROM node:12-buster
FROM current-buster
A .env.sample file is provided with sample variables that are used by the samples and twilio-cli:
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=
TWILIO_API_KEY=
TWILIO_API_SECRET=
Create a copy of this file named .env and it will be used by the container to provide environment varialbles. Additional values can be provided and used as needed.
In the .devcontainer/devcontainer.json file it is possible to:
- Add additional VS Code extensions via the extensions array
- Modify the settings property to change settings.json values
More details can be found at devcontainer.json reference. Any changes made to the devcontainer.json file will require a rebuild of the container image.
Samples with debugging hooks have been provided located within the twilio folder under language/sample. Debugger setup is handled via launch.json and more information about settings or adding additional configurations can be found at - Debugging.
To get started with the JavaScript sample open or navigate a terminal to twilio/js/sample and run npm install. The package.json contains two npm scripts:
- start - run
hello-container.js - debug - run
hello-container.jsand wait for debugger to attach
Using npm run debug with Run (Ctrl+Shift+D) and selecting Debug node should attach VS Code to the running script. Debug node can be used to attach to any user written code and more information about debugging with node can be found at - Debugging Guide.
To get started with the Python sample open or navigate a terminal to twilio/python/sample and run ./setup.sh. Using run.sh with Run (Ctrl+Shift+D) and selecting Debug python should attach VS Code to the running script. More information about debugpy CLI can be found at - debugpy CLI Usage.
It seems to be an issue with symlinks when building the container with the bin folder created by virtualenv which may cause an issue when rebuilding a container that does not mask or ignore the folder entirely. The error may look something like:
[2020-12-23T17:30:00.153Z] [PID 22092] Building twilio-dev
[2020-12-23T17:30:00.279Z] [PID 22092] Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\docker\utils\build.py", line 96, in create_archive
OSError: [Errno 22] Invalid argument: '\\\\?\\y:\\Projects\\twilio-dev-container
\\twilio\\python\\sample\\bin\\python'
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "docker-compose", line 3, in <module>
File "compose\cli\main.py", line 67, in main
File "compose\cli\main.py", line 126, in perform_command
File "compose\cli\main.py", line 1070, in up
File "compose\cli\main.py", line 1066, in up
File "compose\project.py", line 615, in up
File "compose\service.py", line 346, in ensure_image_exists
File "compose\service.py", line 1125, in build
File "site-packages\docker\api\build.py", line 160, in build
File "site-packages\docker\utils\build.py", line 31, in tar
File "site-packages\docker\utils\build.py", line 100, in create_archive
OSError: Can not read file in context: \\?\y:\Projects\twilio-dev-container\twil
io\python\sample\bin\python
[23620] Failed to execute script docker-compose
It did not seem possible to control hiding the file via .dockerignore. As a workaround it is possible to map bin to a docker volume and prevent the files from being accessible during an image build. This can be seen docker-compose.yml:
services:
twilio-dev:
volumes:
- python-bin:/usr/src/twilio/python/sample/bin
volumes:
python-bin: # persist local sample python bin