big-container

doom emacs development inside a container. Setting up doom emacs requires months. This container is an opinionated version of doom emacs tailored for terminal development. It is supposed to be used with Ghostty.

Try

docker run -it ghcr.io/amiorin/big-container
emacs

Ghostty conf

macos-titlebar-style = hidden

mouse-hide-while-typing = true
clipboard-paste-protection = false
copy-on-select = clipboard

font-family = JetBrainsMonoNL Nerd Font Mono
font-size = 16
font-feature = -liga
font-feature = -calt
font-feature = -dlig

keybind = clear

keybind = opt+shift+n=new_window
keybind = opt+shift+w=close_surface

keybind = cmd+v=paste_from_clipboard

keybind = cmd+minus=decrease_font_size:1
keybind = cmd+equal=increase_font_size:1
keybind = cmd+zero=reset_font_size

macos-option-as-alt = true

Features

• ARM64 and AMD64 multi-platform image
• Clojure develpment works out of the box
• Kitty Keyboard Protocol (you can use any combination of cmd, opt, ctrl, and shift)
• Nerd fonts
• Vterm (emacs is the terminal multiplexer, Zellij is used only for tabs)
• Recent files persisted in Macos
• Atuin
• Nix and Devbox to install packages
• Fish shell
• It works in GitHub Action (uid 1001)
• Many tools (check the Dockerfile)
• Zellij
• Direnv
• It supports multiple GitHub accounts

Install

• Create a script (~/.local/bin/dev for example)
• Install Ghostty on Macos
• Install atuin on Macos
• Install OrbStack on Macos
• Replace amiorin with your personal GitHub name
• Replace alberto-of with your company GitHub name
• Fix the volumes to see your repos inside the container
• Run dev

#!/usr/bin/env bash

GITHUB_USER=amiorin
GITHUB_USER_ALPHA=alberto-of

gh auth token -u $GITHUB_USER > /dev/null 2>&1 || (echo Already inside "dev" && exit 1)
[ $? -eq 0 ] || exit 0

ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME=${GITHUB_USER^^}_MACOS
GITHUB_TOKEN=`gh auth token -u $GITHUB_USER`
GITHUB_TOKEN_ALPHA=`gh auth token -u $GITHUB_USER_ALPHA`

mkdir -p ~/.emacs.d/.local/cache
touch ~/.emacs.d/.local/cache/recentf
mkdir -p ~/.m2
mkdir -p ~/.aws
mkdir -p ~/.ssh
chmod 0700 ~/.ssh
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/atuin
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/zoxide
mkdir -p ~/.ansible
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
mkdir -p ~/code/personal
mkdir -p ~/code/of

docker run --rm -it \
           -e GITHUB_TOKEN=$GITHUB_TOKEN \
           -e GITHUB_TOKEN_ALPHA=$GITHUB_TOKEN_ALPHA \
           -e GH_TOKEN=$GITHUB_TOKEN \
           --net=host \
           -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
           -v ~/.emacs.d/.local/cache/recentf:/home/vscode/.emacs.d/.local/cache/recentf \
           -v ~/.m2:/home/vscode/.m2 \
           -v ~/.aws:/home/vscode/.aws \
           -v ~/.ssh:/home/vscode/.ssh \
           -v ~/.local/share/atuin:/home/vscode/.local/share/atuin \
           -v ~/.local/share/zoxide:/home/vscode/.local/share/zoxide \
           -v ~/.ansible:/home/vscode/.ansible \
           -v ~/.local/bin/dev:/home/vscode/.local/bin/dev \
           -v ~/code/personal:/home/vscode/code/personal \
           -v ~/code/of:/home/vscode/workspaces \
           -v ~:/home/vscode/$USER \
           ghcr.io/amiorin/big-container:latest \
           fish -c "zellij attach --create $ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME && begin pkill emacs || true; end" \
&& kill `ps -o ppid= -p $$`

Multiple GitHub Accounts

To handle multiple GitHub Accounts with this image, you need to clone the repos with

• https://github.com/ for the main account
• https://[email protected]/ for the alpha account
• https://[email protected]/ for the beta account
• https://[email protected]/ for the gamma account

Commit with the correct Author

If you commit with magit you can have a default author defined in .doom.d/config.el

(let ((user (getenv "ZELLIJ_SESSION_NAME")))
  (cond
   ((string-prefix-p "AMIORIN" user)
    (progn (set-git-name "Alberto Miorin")
           (set-git-email "[email protected]")
           (setq display-line-numbers-type t)))

Or you can override it with environment variables.

• Create a .envrc

export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="Alberto Miorin"
export [email protected]
export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="Alberto Miorin"
export [email protected]

Multiplayer development

If you have an machine with ssh in the cloud, you can share it with other developers. You need to forward your ssh agent. Install the Babashka script session-from-agent.bb on the remote machine. An Atuin account needs to be shared inside the team. The main difference with the first script is that here it starts a container in the background and it uses Zellij to create a session per developer. Developers can join the session of other developers to pair program.

#!/usr/bin/fish
sudo chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock

set items ALBERTO FACUNDO VALERY RAFAEL
set config (printf "%s\n" $items | fzf --prompt="Start Zellij » " --height=~50% --layout=reverse --border --exit-0)
if [ -z $config ]
    echo "Nothing selected"
    exit 1
end

set config $config@(hostname)

if not test -z "$SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
   set DEV_NAME (session-from-agent.bb)
   ln -sf $SSH_AUTH_SOCK /tmp/$DEV_NAME@(hostname).agent
end

docker run -d \
           --name devbox \
           -e GH_TOKEN="$GH_TOKEN" \
           -e ATUIN_LOGIN="$ATUIN_LOGIN" \
           --net=host \
           -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
           -v /home/vscode/.emacs.d/.local/cache/recentf:/home/vscode/.emacs.d/.local/cache/recentf \
           -v /home/vscode/.m2:/home/vscode/.m2 \
           -v /home/vscode/.aws:/home/vscode/.aws \
           -v /home/vscode/.ssh:/home/vscode/.ssh \
           -v /home/vscode/.local/share/atuin:/home/vscode/.local/share/atuin \
           -v /home/vscode/.ansible:/home/vscode/.ansible \
           -v /home/vscode/.docker:/home/vscode/.docker \
           -v /home/vscode/workspaces:/home/vscode/workspaces \
           -v /:/home/vscode/stage1-root \
           -v /tmp:/tmp \
           -v /data/ephemeral:/home/vscode/ephemeral \
           ghcr.io/amiorin/big-container \
           tail -f /dev/null \
           > /dev/null 2>&1

docker start devbox > /dev/null 2>&1

exec docker exec -it devbox /home/vscode/.local/share/devbox/global/default/.devbox/nix/profile/default/bin/fish -c "zellij attach --create $config && emacsclient -a 'echo' --eval \"(recentf-save-list)\" -s /tmp/emacs1001/$config > /dev/null 2>&1"

Development

If you want to modify your config.el, config.fish, or any config file, better to mount them and rebuild the container when done.

# Add this to the docker command
-v ~/code/personal/big-container/main/dotfiles/fish/config.fish:/home/vscode/.config/fish/config.fish \
-v ~/code/personal/big-container/main/dotfiles/doomemacs/config.el:/home/vscode/.doom.d/config.el \

Build

The GitHub Action creates a multi-platform docker image for AMD64 and ARM64. You can also publish the image from your computer.

just publish

Dotfiles

You can backup and install the dotfiles without rebuilding the image.

# Available recipes:
just
# Backup the dotfiles
just backup
# Install the dotfiles
just install

Fix the permission

If you cannot push the image manually in your fork, probably you need to fix the token permissions.

gh auth refresh --scopes 'codespace,gist,read:org,repo,workflow,write:packages,delete:packages,read:packages'

License

Copyright © 2025 Alberto Miorin

big-container is released under the MIT License.