Summary
The container lifecycle collapses to three calls with an order to them.
devcontainer_up comes first and exists to guarantee the container is running before anything executes inside it; devcontainer_run_user_commands then plays the setup scripts the configuration defines; devcontainer_exec covers everything after that. Because workspaceFolder is a per-call argument rather than server configuration, one client can drive several checkouts at once. Output redirection is built into each tool through outputFilePath, which is what keeps a long build from arriving as one enormous message.
What it is
A three-tool wrapper over the devcontainer lifecycle for a workspace folder on disk.
What you get
- devcontainer_up starts or initializes the devcontainer for the workspace folder you name, leaving it running and ready.
- devcontainer_run_user_commands runs that devcontainer's postCreateCommand and postStartCommand scripts.
- devcontainer_exec runs an arbitrary shell command inside the container for that workspace folder.
- All three take an outputFilePath, so the output of a call can land in a file instead of coming back inline.
Requirements
A workspace folder on disk with a devcontainer configuration, named per call as workspaceFolder.
Setup effort
One command — npx -y @crunchloop/mcp-devcontainers