Adding new post on using liblab in a devcontainer

blog/config.yaml

@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ params:
     enable: true
     title: "Hi, I'm Jim."
     subtitle: "I do developer advocacy"
-    content: "Developer Advocate. Award winning YouTuber."
+    content: "Principal Developer Advocate as LibLab. Award winning YouTuber."
     image: /images/png/jim-portrait-circle.png
     socialNetworks:
       github: https://github.com/JimBobBennett
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ params:
     title: "About Me"
     image: "/images/jpg/jim-portrait-2-square.jpg"
     content: |-
-      I am a Regional Cloud Advocate focusing on building out and skilling communities in the Pacific North West, with a focus on the Microsoft Reactor in Redmond, Washington, as well as a passion for the internet of things, edge computing and TinyML. I'm British, so I sound way smarter than I actually am.
+      I am a Principal Developer Advocate at LibLab helping API developers create the SDKs they need. I'm British, so I sound way smarter than I actually am.
       
       In the past I've lived in 4 continents working as a developer in the mobile, desktop, and scientific space. I've spoken at conferences and events all around the globe, organised meetup groups and communities, and written a book on mobile development.
 

blog/content/blogs/liblab-in-a-devcontainer/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+---
+author: "Jim Bennett"
+date: 2023-08-04
+description: "Installing LibLab into a devcontainer using NPM"
+draft: true
+tags: ["liblab", "devcontainer", "codespace", "vscode", "npm"]
+title: "Installing LibLab into a devcontainer using NPM"
+
+images:
+  - /blogs/liblab-in-a-devcontainer/banner.png
+featured_image: banner.png
+image: banner.png
+---
+
+> In this post we look at how to add NPM packages to a devcontainer to use in VS Code locally or in a GitHub codespace
+
+I recently started at [LibLab](https://liblab.com) as a Principal Developer Advocate. LibLab is a tool that converts APIs into language SDKs, something I'm a big fan of as I love typesafety and the inherent documentation that comes with a good SDK. Obviously my first job was to dive into building out an API and creating an SDK from it.
+
+## Devcontainers
+
+I love [devcontainers](https://containers.dev/) - they allow me to create a repo that anyone can open and instantly have a fully configured environment that just works! My standard process when creating any sample code is to start with a devcontainer. In this case, I'm creating a [FastAPI](https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/) application, and building an SDK from that.
+
+I start with a Python container - this is a pre-configured container that I can just spin up inside VS Code.
+
+![The Python 3 devcontainers option in the vs code select dev container configuration](python3-devcontainer.png)
+
+Once in this container I can create my API, then build the SDK using LibLab.
+
+## Add LibLab to the container
+
+LibLab is available as a [CLI that you install via NPM](https://developers.liblab.com/docs/getting-started). There are a number of ways you can install NPM packages in the container:
+
+* Install it manually in the `postCreateCommand`
+* Use a `DOCKERFILE` and install it there
+* Use the NPM package feature
+
+I went for option 3 - use the NPM package feature. This avoids having to create a `DOCKERFILE` and configure my `devcontainer.json` to use it, and means I don't have to add more to my `postCreateCommand` which already installs pip packages.
+
+You can add this feature manually into the `devcontainer.json` file, or use the command palette:
+
+![The configure container features command palette option](devcontainer-feature-command-palette.png)
+
+![Selecting the NPM package feature from the command palette](devcontainer-add-feature.png)
+
+To add manually, add the `ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/npm-package:1` feature:
+
+```json
+{
+    ...
+    "features": {
+        "ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/npm-package:1": {}
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Once added, the feature is configured using the `package` and `version` parameters. THe `package` should be set to `liblab`, the name of the NPM package for LibLab. The `version` parameter defaults to `latest` and I always want the latest LibLab CLI installed, so this can be left out.
+
+```json
+{
+    ...
+    "features": {
+        "ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/npm-package:1": {
+          "package": "liblab"
+        }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+## Rebuild the container
+
+Once this is set up you can rebuild the container and the LibLab SDK will be available in your terminal!
+
+```bash
+vscode ➜ /workspaces/python $ liblab
+The offical LibLab CLI
+
+VERSION
+  liblab/0.9.20 linux-arm64 node-v18.17.0
+
+USAGE
+  $ liblab [COMMAND]
+
+TOPICS
+  hooks  Bootstrap an SDKs hooks.
+
+COMMANDS
+  build           Build SDK(s) and Docs for your API.
+  help            Display help for liblab.
+  init            Create a liblab folder for housing files relevant to SDK and Doc generation.
+  login           Login to your account.
+  logout          Logout of your account.
+  post-build      Run extra tasks after code generation.
+  pr              Create a PR for all the generated SDKs.
+  register        Register for a new liblab account.
+  reset-password  Reset your password.
+  token           Create a new login token for CI/CD.
+```
+
+## Learn more
+
+Want to learn more about LibLab for automating the generation of SDKs from your APIs? Get in touch.
+
+* [Contact me via social](https://linktr.ee/JimBobBennett)
+* [Join our Discord](https://discord.gg/F8aECHbRkV)