containers

Browse and operate your local Docker or Podman containers and images in a panel: sortable lists, live log streaming with filtering, CPU and memory charts, a filesystem browser, image layer size breakdown, and recorded Dockerfile provenance.

Install

In GitHub Copilot, open Customize → Plugins → marketplace gear, add microsoft/azure-dev-tools (marketplace ID azure-dev-tools), and install containers when listed. The full plugin includes the canvas and its opening skill.

For canvas-only installation, add the Containers canvas URL under Customize → Canvases → +. This does not install the opening skill; open Containers from your installed canvases.

The latest customer README contains the same setup instructions. Use these paths only when published; if neither is available, report that rather than substituting a source folder.

Quickstart

1. With the full plugin installed, ask Copilot: "Open Containers canvas." For a canvas-only installation, open Containers from installed canvases.
2. Choose a container to inspect its status, ports, mounts and lifecycle controls.
3. Open Logs to follow output or Stats to watch CPU, memory and network.
4. Ask "Why did web stop?" or "Why is my node image so large?" and Copilot opens the matching view.

What you can do

• See every container and image, sorted, with live state from the daemon.
• Follow logs as they stream, and filter them.
• Watch CPU, memory and network for a running container.
• Browse the filesystem of a running container that provides ls, and read a known file path from stopped or distroless containers.
• Break an image into layers to see what made it large.
• Recover what an image records about its source repository and commit.
• Get an interactive shell in a running container — click terminal in the panel, or just ask Copilot.

Requirements

• A canvas-capable GitHub Copilot host
• Node.js 22 or later
• Docker Desktop or Docker Engine with a reachable daemon

Podman is detected when Docker is absent and its core paths work, but it has not received the same real-daemon qualification as Docker.

Troubleshooting

• Canvas unavailable: check that the plugin is enabled, reload extensions, fully quit and reopen GitHub Copilot, then retry in a fresh chat.
• No containers or images: verify that Docker is installed and that its daemon is running, then reopen the canvas.
• Permission denied: confirm your user can run docker ps without elevation. The canvas uses the same local runtime access.
• Terminal unavailable: the interactive shell is handed to the host Terminal canvas. Use the displayed docker exec command in your own terminal when that canvas is unavailable.