☁️ GCP VS Code

Run unlimited VS Code instances in your browser using Google Cloud.

GitHub Codespaces limits you to 2 concurrent instances. With Google Cloud, you can run as many as you want — each one a full VS Code environment with its own terminal, filesystem, Docker, and dev tools.

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/nirholas/vscode-google-cloud.git
cd vscode-google-cloud

# Make executable
chmod +x gcp-vscode.sh

# One-time setup (installs gcloud CLI, authenticates you)
./gcp-vscode.sh setup

# Set your project ID
export GCP_PROJECT_ID=your-project-id

# Create your first VS Code instance
./gcp-vscode.sh create my-vscode-1

# Wait ~2 min, then get the URL and password
./gcp-vscode.sh url my-vscode-1
./gcp-vscode.sh password my-vscode-1

# Open the URL in your browser, enter the password — done!

Each VM comes pre-installed with:

• VS Code in your browser (via code-server)
• Node.js 20 + npm
• Bun runtime
• Docker + Docker Compose
• Python 3 + pip
• Git, curl, wget, jq, build-essential
• 100% root access — install anything you want

Defaults: name=vscode-dev-1, zone=us-central1-a, machine=e2-standard-4

Configure via environment variables (add to ~/.bashrc for persistence):

export GCP_PROJECT_ID=your-project-id      # Required
export GCP_ZONE=us-central1-a              # Default zone
export GCP_MACHINE_TYPE=e2-standard-4      # VM size
export GCP_DISK_SIZE=50                    # Disk in GB

Tip: Stop VMs when not using them. Stopped VMs only cost ~$0.17/day for disk storage.

To change the size of an existing VM:

./gcp-vscode.sh resize my-vscode-1 e2-standard-8

Choose a zone close to you for the best latency:

# Create a VM in London
./gcp-vscode.sh create uk-dev europe-west2-a

Full list: gcloud compute zones list

./gcp-vscode.sh create frontend-app
./gcp-vscode.sh create backend-api
./gcp-vscode.sh create ml-training e2-standard-16  # beefier VM
./gcp-vscode.sh create mobile-app
./gcp-vscode.sh create devops-infra

# See all of them
./gcp-vscode.sh list

# Morning — start your VMs
./gcp-vscode.sh start frontend-app
./gcp-vscode.sh start backend-api

# Get URLs
./gcp-vscode.sh url frontend-app
./gcp-vscode.sh url backend-api

# Evening — stop to save money
./gcp-vscode.sh stop frontend-app
./gcp-vscode.sh stop backend-api

Once in VS Code (browser), open the terminal and:

git clone https://github.com/you/your-repo.git
cd your-repo
npm install  # or bun install, pip install, etc.

SSH into the VM and set up Caddy:

./gcp-vscode.sh ssh my-vscode-1

Then on the VM:

apt-get install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg
curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list
apt-get update && apt-get install caddy

cat > /etc/caddy/Caddyfile << EOF
vscode.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:8080
}
EOF

systemctl restart caddy

Point your DNS A record to the VM's external IP.

# Reserve a static IP in the VM's region
gcloud compute addresses create my-static-ip --region=us-central1

# Get the reserved IP
gcloud compute addresses describe my-static-ip --region=us-central1 --format='get(address)'

# Assign it (VM must be stopped)
./gcp-vscode.sh stop my-vscode-1
gcloud compute instances delete-access-config my-vscode-1 --zone=us-central1-a
gcloud compute instances add-access-config my-vscode-1 --zone=us-central1-a --address=YOUR_STATIC_IP
./gcp-vscode.sh start my-vscode-1

./gcp-vscode.sh ssh my-vscode-1
nano ~/.config/code-server/config.yaml   # edit the password field
systemctl restart code-server@root

Through the browser UI, or via SSH:

code-server --install-extension github.copilot
code-server --install-extension ms-azuretools.vscode-docker

• A Google Cloud account (free tier includes $300 credits)
• A GCP project with billing enabled
• Linux or macOS terminal (or WSL on Windows)

1. The script creates a Google Compute Engine VM with Ubuntu 24.04
2. A startup script automatically installs code-server, Node.js, Bun, Docker, and dev tools
3. A firewall rule opens port 8080 for browser access
4. code-server runs on port 8080 with password authentication
5. You access VS Code at http://VM_IP:8080

"serviceAccount not found" error
Your project's default service account was deleted. The script uses --no-service-account to avoid this — make sure you have the latest version.

Can't connect to the URL
Wait 2-3 minutes after creation for code-server to install. Check VM status with ./gcp-vscode.sh list.

Forgot the password
Run ./gcp-vscode.sh password my-vscode-1

IP changed after restart
Ephemeral IPs change on stop/start. Run ./gcp-vscode.sh url my-vscode-1 for the new IP, or set up a static IP.

Quota limit reached
Request a quota increase at console.cloud.google.com/iam-admin/quotas.

All rights reserved. See LICENSE.

PRs welcome! Ideas for improvements:

• Terraform/Pulumi config for infrastructure-as-code
• Preemptible/spot instance support (even cheaper)
• Auto-stop after idle timeout
• Multi-user support with individual passwords
• Tailscale integration for private access
• Snapshot/restore for VM state

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Coding agents and LLM tooling can read this repo directly: AGENTS.md, llms.txt, llms-full.txt. Point an agent at https://github.com/nirholas/vscode-google-cloud and it has the context it needs.

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