Plans for USB support in Codespaces via the Web Serial API

[zfields]

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Do you support USB connections from Codespaces, or have any plans to do so?

I'm an embedded firmware engineer, and I use .devcontainers to build/flash/debug my hardware.

I develop on Linux, so I can pass --device /dev/bus/usb on the command line to Docker, then I am able to flash and debug my firmware from my VSCode devcontainer.

Perhaps, if Codespaces could gain access to USB via the Web Serial API, then I would be able to build, flash and debug my embedded device directly from Codespaces. This would be a game changer!

Here is an example of my configuration, in case it helps.

.devcontainer/devcontainer.json

// For format details, see https://aka.ms/devcontainer.json. For config options, see the README at:
// https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dev-containers/tree/v0.205.2/containers/docker-existing-dockerfile
{
    "name": "Sparrow Development Environment Dockerfile",

    // Sets the run context to one level up instead of the .devcontainer folder.
    "context": "..",

    // Update the 'dockerFile' property if you aren't using the standard 'Dockerfile' filename.
    "dockerFile": "../Dockerfile",

    // Set *default* container specific settings.json values on container create.
    "settings": {},

    // Add the IDs of extensions you want installed when the container is created.
    "extensions": [
        "marus25.cortex-debug",
        "ms-vscode.cpptools",
        "ms-vscode.vscode-serial-monitor",
        "shardulm94.trailing-spaces",
        "twxs.cmake",
        "zfields.cortex-debug-dp-stm32wl"
    ],

    // Use 'forwardPorts' to make a list of ports inside the container available locally.
    // "forwardPorts": [],

    // Uncomment the next line to run commands after the container is created - for example installing curl.
    // "postCreateCommand": "apt-get update && apt-get install -y curl",

    // Uncomment when using a ptrace-based debugger like C++, Go, and Rust
    "runArgs": [
        "--device=/dev/bus/usb/"
    ],

    // Uncomment to use the Docker CLI from inside the container. See https://aka.ms/vscode-remote/samples/docker-from-docker.
    // "mounts": [ "source=/var/run/docker.sock,target=/var/run/docker.sock,type=bind" ],

    // Uncomment to connect as a non-root user if you've added one. See https://aka.ms/vscode-remote/containers/non-root.
    "remoteUser": "blues"
}

[legomushroom]

Hey @zfields,

No, unfortunately, Codespaces do not support USB-forwarding at the moment.

I was working on a GitHub CLI extension that can do such forwarding though. It currently lacks the isochronous transfers support, but I don't think they are commonly used during the dev time.

I was looking for dogfooders to test in a broader set of projects, would you be interested in trying it for your scenarios?

[justyn]

This could allow the use of Codespaces for a whole category of projects that currently have to stay local-only.

Is it still be developed?

[zfields]

My goal is to perform embedded development from a container.

I don't quite understand how the GitHub CLI would interact with the container. Can you ELI5 for me?

[rwbot]

@zfields I'd be interested in this tool as well. Could I also dogfood?

[johnchapman-eaton]

@zfields I'd be interested to dogfood.

[SL2021-Dev]

Same here...
Using ESP-IDF
Would it correct this issue...

@SL2021-Dev ➜ /workspaces/SL-v2 (main) $ source esp-idf/export.sh
Setting IDF_PATH to '/workspaces/SL-v2/esp-idf'
Detecting the Python interpreter
Checking "python" ...
Python 3.10.8
"python" has been detected
Adding ESP-IDF tools to PATH...
WARNING: tool openocd-esp32 version v0.11.0-esp32-20221026 is installed, but returned non-zero exit code (127) with error message:
/home/codespace/.espressif/tools/openocd-esp32/v0.11.0-esp32-20221026/openocd-esp32/bin/openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libusb-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

ERROR: tool openocd-esp32 has no installed versions. Please run '/workspaces/SL-v2/esp-idf/install.sh' to install it.

[gblikas]

@legomushroom could i get access as well? i’d like to incorporate this for unity-desktop-lite. I assume this tool is the natural evolution from microsoft/vscode#161018?

[bsiever]

@legomushroom Hi --- This sounds really useful! What's the status of this work? Any updates?

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[zfields]

This is sadly dormant, but it would be nice to hear if there are any plans from a PM related to the project.

[justyn]

I noted that the related Codespaces network bridge has been archived: https://github.com/github/gh-net
Does this mean that this kind of functionality is no longer desirable?

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[HumayunMhmadi]

Good