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No error for --env-file if the ./env file does not exist

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#6,853 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
55/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
go
Domain
cli

Research direction

Start at the Docker CLI's --env-file entry point and locate the parser mentioned in the issue. Compare its behavior with Docker Compose, then verify that a missing env-file path no longer produces an error while existing-file behavior remains intact.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

kind/feature status/0-triage
Description

This would be really nice QoL improvement for devcontainers. Many devs will have personal .env files with API keys for services, but it's annoying to have to make an empty .env file just so that the docker CLI doesn't error at you. You can do a workaround by using "initialize command" "source .env". I believe this behavior is different than docker compose which lets you provide a path with no file actual file necessary.

I believe the fix would be straightforward just having a different default behavior for the parser which powers this features. If you would like I can make a PR.

Dominant language
Go
Stars
6.1k
Forks
2.2k
Avg merge
1d 10h
Merged PRs (30d)
47

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