Starting a workspace copies a template to S3, applies a Kubernetes Deployment, Service and Ingress, restores your files into the pod and attaches a terminal over a WebSocket.
DevEx is an open-source cloud IDE. Every workspace is its own Linux container on Kubernetes — a code editor, a real terminal and a public URL in your browser, with files that are still there tomorrow.
01What you actually get
A PTY into your own container. Install packages, run servers, background jobs, Ctrl-C — nothing is simulated.
Your files live on the container's disk, not in browser storage, and sync to S3 when the workspace stops.
Start a server on any port and it is reachable from the internet. Share it, hit it from your phone, point a webhook at it.
Close the tab and the pod's resources go back to the cluster. Come back next week and your files are exactly where you left them.
02The workspace
This is the layout you land in once a workspace is running: files on the left, Monaco in the middle, a shell and port forwarding below. Click around — switch files, flip the panel.
import { serve } from "./server" // one container, one sessionconst port = 3000 serve({ port }, () => { console.log(`up on :${port}`)})Not a video — click a file, or collapse the panel.
03How it works
No image build on the critical path and no VM to wait for. Four things happen between the click and the prompt, and none of them are yours to manage.
Core copies the Node.js or Python template into object storage under your account and records the workspace.
POST /api/repl/new → s3://…/<you>/<id>/A Deployment, a Service and an Ingress are applied. The scheduler places the pod; the runner image is usually already cached on the node.
apply deploy · svc · ingress → PendingThe container pulls your files down and forks a PTY. Your browser connects over WebSockets straight to it, through the Ingress.
wss://…/<id> → pty attached · fs syncedChanged files are pushed to storage and the pod's CPU and memory go back to the cluster. Nothing runs while you are away.
diff → s3 put → resources released04Your stack
Start from the Node.js or Python template. It is a real Linux container, so the rest is one install away.
05Open source
Self-host
MIT-licensed and provider-agnostic. A Kubernetes cluster with one public node, an S3-compatible bucket and Redis is enough — no cloud load balancer.
git clone github.com/parthkapoor-dev/devexhelm install traefik traefik/traefik \ -f infra/k8s/traefik-values.yamlkubectl apply -f infra/k8s/cert-issuer-production.yaml
MCP
Turn on the MCP sidecar and an assistant can read the files in a workspace — the same ones open in your editor — instead of guessing at them. It exposes read_file today; more tools are planned.
tools/call read_file {"path": "src/index.ts"}import { serve } from "./server"const port = 3000
06Pricing
Every plan runs the same containers on the same cluster. What changes is how many you get at once, and how much you can ask of each.
Self-hosting is free and always will be — bring your own cluster and none of the above applies.
07Questions
Everything below is answered in more depth in the documentation. These are the short versions.
DevEx is an open-source cloud development environment. It schedules a container on Kubernetes and gives you a browser tab with a code editor, a terminal attached to that container's shell, and a file tree backed by persistent storage.
The Free plan costs nothing and needs no card: two workspaces, 125m CPU and 256Mi memory each, 200MB persisted. Self-hosting is free without limits — the source is MIT-licensed and the deployment is documented.
Yes. A workspace's filesystem is synced to S3-compatible object storage and restored when the workspace starts again, so stopping one does not lose work.
Yes. Ports opened inside the container are forwarded to a public URL, so a dev server or an API you started in the terminal is reachable from anywhere without a tunnel.
Partly, today. An optional MCP server can run beside a workspace, so an assistant reads the same files you are editing over the Model Context Protocol. It exposes read_file now; writing files and running commands are planned.
Yes. DevEx needs a Kubernetes cluster, a Redis instance and an S3-compatible bucket. The self-hosting guide covers the manifests, the environment variables and the runner image.