In modern software development, containerization offers an isolated and consistent environment, which is crucial for maintaining parity between development and production setups. This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough on creating a local development environment using IntelliJ IDEA, DevContainers, and Amazon Linux 2023 for Java development.

Why Use DevContainers?

What Are DevContainers?

DevContainers are a feature provided by Visual Studio Code and other IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA through extensions. They allow you to define a consistent and reproducible development environment using Docker containers. By encapsulating the development environment, you ensure that all team members work in an identical setup, avoiding the “it works on my machine” problem.