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Shubham Kumar
Shubham Kumar

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Getting Started with Coder.com

#coder #clouddevelopment #devops #aws

Introduction

In today’s cloud-native world, developer productivity is often limited by the complexity of local development environments. Setting up tools, dependencies, and resources can be time-consuming and inconsistent across teams. That’s where Coder.com comes in.

Coder provides a way to run developer environments remotely, allowing engineers to code from anywhere while maintaining security, scalability, and reproducibility. Recently, I performed a Proof of Concept (POC) using Coder.com, and in this blog, I’ll share my experience, learnings, and key takeaways.

Why Coder.com?

Traditional development setups often face challenges like:

  • Inconsistent environments across machines
  • Long onboarding times for new developers
  • Security concerns when code resides on laptops
  • Scalability issues when projects demand more compute power

To address these issues, I explored Coder.com, a platform that enables cloud-hosted, reproducible developer workspaces. Recently, I ran a Proof of Concept (POC) to evaluate how Coder fits into a real-world setup. This blog walks you through my installation, configuration, and learnings.

Step 1: Install Dependencies
I began with a clean Ubuntu server. First, I updated the system and installed required utilities:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl unzip
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Step 2: Install Coder
I fetched the latest release of Coder from GitHub and installed it:

CODER_VERSION=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/coder/coder/releases/latest | grep tag_name | cut -d '"' -f 4 | sed 's/v//')
curl -fSL "https://github.com/coder/coder/releases/download/v${CODER_VERSION}/coder_${CODER_VERSION}_linux_amd64.deb" -o coder.deb

sudo apt install ./coder.deb
coder --version
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Step 3: Install Docker

Coder requires Docker for container-based workspaces, so I installed and enabled it:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y docker.io
sudo systemctl enable --now docker
docker ps
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I also added my user (ubuntu) to the Docker group for permissions:

sudo usermod -aG docker ubuntu
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Step 4: Run Coder Server

Once Docker was ready, I launched the Coder server:

coder server
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To make Coder run as a service, I created a systemd service unit:

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/coder.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Coder service
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/coder server
Restart=always
User=ubuntu
Environment=CODER_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0:7080

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
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Then reloaded and enabled it:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable coder
sudo systemctl start coder
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Finally, I opened port 7080 on the server and accessed the Coder dashboard at:

http://<server-ip>:7080
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Once you access the UI, we need to create admin user first.

Step 5: Play with Coder UI

  • I have used the built-in Docker Template to Create a Workspace
  • From the Coder dashboard, I selected the Docker template to spin up a workspace.
  • This template allowed me to quickly create a development container running on my server.
  • I have created a new user and assign him the member role and he can easily access my templates.

Step 6: Create Custom template

Coder integrates natively with Terraform. I have ssh into my ubuntu machine and created a main.tf file to define a simple workspace template:

terraform {
  required_providers {
    coder = {
      source  = "coder/coder"
      version = "0.15.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "coder" {}

resource "coder_agent" "dev" {
  arch = "amd64"
  os   = "linux"
  startup_script = <<EOT
    #!/bin/bash
    set -e

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y python3 python3-pip git curl vim
  EOT
}
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I initialized Terraform and pushed the template to Coder:

terraform init
coder templates push my-ubuntu-template
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Now, in the Coder dashboard, I can see my custom template.

✅ Final Thoughts

This POC with Coder.com gave me a solid understanding of how remote developer environments can simplify onboarding, improve consistency, and enhance security. By testing both the Docker template and Terraform-based custom templates, I was able to validate that Coder is flexible enough to support simple as well as advanced use cases.

If you have questions or want to share your experience, feel free to drop a comment or reach out to me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubham-kumar1807/

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