Development container

The repository ships a development container so you can build and test AWE without installing anything on your machine except Docker and an editor that supports dev containers (VS Code with the Dev Containers extension, or any tool that reads .devcontainer/devcontainer.json).

What is inside

Tool	Version	Notes
JDK	Temurin 21	The CI builds on 21; the framework still targets Java 17
Maven	3.10.0	Configured with the repository .m2/settings.xml, as the CI does
Node.js	24.14.0	The version the frontend-maven-plugin downloads for the build
Docker	docker-in-docker	Testcontainers and the Selenium docker browsers need a Docker daemon
Playwright browsers	Chromium and Firefox	In the version declared by playwright.version in awe-framework/awe-dependencies/pom.xml, with their system libraries

Selenium browsers are not installed in the image: the Selenium tests run them as docker containers. Nothing in the container holds credentials. settings.xml reads MAVEN_REPO_USER, MAVEN_REPO_PASS and the GPG variables from the environment, so a build that only compiles and tests never needs them.

Open the repository

1. Install Docker and the Dev Containers extension in VS Code.
2. Open the repository folder and run Dev Containers: Reopen in Container.
3. Wait for the first start: it builds the image and runs .devcontainer/post-create.sh, which downloads the Playwright browsers (about 1 GB). Next starts reuse the container.

Then build and test as usual:

mvn clean install -DskipTests
mvn test -pl awe-framework/awe-model
npm test --prefix awe-framework/awe-client-angular

MAVEN_ARGS points Maven to .m2/settings.xml, so you do not need -s. Maven profiles are not changed: the CI excludes the devtools profile (-P!devtools); add it to your command line if you want the same.

Ports

Port	Used by
8080	AWE test applications (awe-boot, awe-boot-react) started with mvn spring-boot:run
3000	Website, with npm start --prefix website

The ports are forwarded to your machine with a label. The container does not change the configuration of any application: if port 8080 is taken on your machine, VS Code forwards it to another local port and shows which one.

XML autocompletion

The container registers the AWE XML catalog (awe-framework/awe-generic-screens/src/main/resources/schemas/awe/catalog.xml) in the XML extension of Red Hat, so screens, menus, queries and the rest of the definitions get autocompletion, inline documentation and validation without any further setup. See XSD tooling for the details and for other IDEs.

Browser tests

Playwright tests find the browsers installed by the container. The Selenium docker browsers run on the Docker daemon of the container (docker-in-docker); see the Selenium test guide for how to configure them.

Docker inside the container

The container runs in privileged mode, because docker-in-docker needs it. Code that runs in the workspace (Maven plugins, npm scripts, Testcontainers images) can therefore reach the Docker daemon of the container with elevated access. This is acceptable for local development; do not open untrusted repositories or branches in this container.

Keep it current

Renovate updates the image digest, the container features and the Node version in .devcontainer/devcontainer.json with the rest of the dependencies. Node is pinned in two places, .devcontainer/devcontainer.json and node.version in awe-framework/awe-dependencies/pom.xml; they must change together, and Renovate groups both in one merge request (group node toolchain). If you change one by hand, change the other.

After a feature version changes in devcontainer.json, regenerate the lock file with the Dev Containers CLI:

npx -y @devcontainers/cli@0.89.0 upgrade --workspace-folder .

If you change playwright.version in awe-framework/awe-dependencies/pom.xml, rebuild the container (Dev Containers: Rebuild Container) so the browsers match. post-create.sh accepts only a plain version there (for example 1.63.0) and fails with a message otherwise.