.gitpod.yml

A workspace gets configured through a .gitpod.yml file, located at the root of your project, written in YAML syntax. Here’s an example:

# Commands to start on workspace startup
tasks:
  - init: yarn install
    command: yarn build
# Ports to expose on workspace startup
ports:
  - port: 8000
    onOpen: open-preview

To see a full reference of all available properties, please refer to the .gitpod.yml reference page.

How to provide the .gitpod.yml config file

Note: With the release of Teams & Projects, you can optionally configure your project at https://gitpod.io/new. If you prefer to commit .gitpod.yml to your repository and benefit from source control, please read on.

In order to tell Gitpod how to prepare a dev environment for your project, you check in a .gitpod.yml file into the root of your repository. This way you can version your workspace configuration together with your code. If, for example, you need to go back to an old branch that required a different configuration, Gitpod will start with the correct configuration, since that bit of configuration is part of your codebase.

Generate Your Gitpod Config File

The quickest way to create a .gitpod.yml file is with the gp CLI. In the terminal of a Gitpod workspace, type:

gp init

This generates example content you can adjust to meet your needs.

Alternatively, you can use the interactive mode with gp init -i. It will ask you about the different configuration options, generate the .gitpod.yml file and open it in an editor tab so you can review and extend as neccesary.

Gitpod provides auto-complete, hover info and validation for the .gitpod.yml file so you get instant feedback and can rest assure your configuration is valid.

See it in action

To test your .gitpod.yml file, you need to commit and push the file to your repository and open a new workspace either by using the Gitpod extension or prefixing your repo URL with https://gitpod.io/#.

If you don’t want to have multiple commits as you’re testing and making changes to your .gitpod.yml, you can make changes from a new branch.