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I have enjoyed running Claude Code in a container. The biggest advantage for me isn't security though, it's how easy it becomes to spin off agents to work in th

I have enjoyed running Claude Code in a container. The biggest advantage for me isn't security though, it's how easy it becomes to spin off agents to work in the background. I use a simple script that copies my working directory into a container, prompts Claude Code, and then either saves a planning document locally, or opens a pull request in GitHub for me to review. I quite like this because it makes starting agents when I have ideas really frictionless, and then I can easily discard the results and try again if it went off the rails. The Max plan makes me not worry about the cost of this whole process as well. I also set up containers initially out of caution, but honestly, I've never seen Claude Code do anything that git couldn't easily reverse, so I'm not that worried about that any more.

manmal 1y ago
Have you tried setting up multiple git worktrees as well? I wonder if that doesn’t solve most of the issues.
- stavros 1y ago
  It does, yes, and it's what Claude Code recommends officially.
- sothatsit 1y ago
  I have, but I just found that a bit tedious to manage manually. Maybe another version of this script would just be to automatically create a worktree, run a prompt in that, and then have the script manage the results, and clean up the worktree at the end.
  - FlyingAvatar 1y ago
    https://github.com/stravu/crystal https://github.com/stravu/crystal This is still alpha, but I have been using it to handle the multi-agent worktree paradigm.
  - nojs 1y ago
    One thing that I’ve found works well is to permanently have a few numbered branches checked out as worktrees, keep them up to date with main, and then when you want to do a task in parallel you just pick an existing branch rather than creating and deleting worktrees every time. This lets you persist local databases, IDE project settings and so on for each worktree too.
extr 1y ago
Any interest in sharing the script?
- sothatsit 1y ago
  I'm afraid it is not that shareable as it contains a lot of dependency management and setup that is specific to my setup and projects. But it's not too complicated. You could probably re-create your own version fairly quickly. It's just a Dockerfile that installs dependencies, an entrypoint that invokes claude, and some wrapper scripts that handle creating the container, passing through the prompt, and managing the results (e.g., output markdown to a directory, or open a PR). For input/output from the container I mount directories within the Docker container to local directories under ~/.call_claude/. I create a directory under there, clone the source code to it, output the prompt to a text file, and then grab results from that directory after Claude Code has finished running.
  - rob 1y ago
    Just have Claude make a version of your script that's shareable for others, no?
    - sothatsit 1y ago
      It's just not that simple. If your scripts contain 20 things hard-coded to your setup and projects, it is not quick nor easy to remove all of those and make something configurable and easily adaptable to other people's setups and projects. Adapting the scripts to your specific setup is pretty much the entirety of the work in setting this up.
- hboon 1y ago
  Not the OP, but I have this fish alias. I just run `claude-docker` in my project root (where I would otherwise run `claude`). There's nothing to it. You can tweak it: alias claude-docker='docker run --mount type=bind,source=/Users/hboon/.claude,target=/home/node/.claude --mount type=bind,source=/Users/hboon/.claude.json,target=/home/node/.claude.json --mount type=bind,source=.,target=/workspace/project --workdir /workspace/project -it cc /usr/bin/fish'
anon7000 1y ago
Even locally, Claude in multiple terminal tabs/windows can do different tasks in parallel
- sothatsit 1y ago
  They can, but I find it harder to review if you are trying to get Claude Code to do anything non-trivial. I've seen some people make multiple git worktrees so they can have two instances of Claude Code working independently, but I found that to be tedious to manage.
  - wahnfrieden 1y ago
    Isn't there tooling for helping to manage this
eMPee584 1y ago
And thus, the machines managed to build trust in their harmlessness in men. Which, eventually, would turn out advantageous..
- dcreater 1y ago
  Yeah the point of security is missed. Given how easy it is, I doubt I'm ever going to run Claude code or any other CLI that uses remote AI servers without a devcontainer again
m_kos 1y ago
> I've never seen Claude Code do anything that git couldn't easily reverse, so I'm not that worried about that any more. I had one agent that installed something with pip and used it to rewrite my git history. It used the wrong flag and what was left was one file. I am glad I caught it before auto-commit and push triggered. It was one of my hobby projects, so not a huge deal. I can't imagine the fallout of this happening in a work environment.

manmal 1y ago

Have you tried setting up multiple git worktrees as well? I wonder if that doesn’t solve most of the issues.

stavros 1y ago
It does, yes, and it's what Claude Code recommends officially.
sothatsit 1y ago
I have, but I just found that a bit tedious to manage manually. Maybe another version of this script would just be to automatically create a worktree, run a prompt in that, and then have the script manage the results, and clean up the worktree at the end.
- FlyingAvatar 1y ago
  https://github.com/stravu/crystal https://github.com/stravu/crystal This is still alpha, but I have been using it to handle the multi-agent worktree paradigm.
- nojs 1y ago
  One thing that I’ve found works well is to permanently have a few numbered branches checked out as worktrees, keep them up to date with main, and then when you want to do a task in parallel you just pick an existing branch rather than creating and deleting worktrees every time. This lets you persist local databases, IDE project settings and so on for each worktree too.

extr 1y ago

Any interest in sharing the script?

sothatsit 1y ago
I'm afraid it is not that shareable as it contains a lot of dependency management and setup that is specific to my setup and projects. But it's not too complicated. You could probably re-create your own version fairly quickly. It's just a Dockerfile that installs dependencies, an entrypoint that invokes claude, and some wrapper scripts that handle creating the container, passing through the prompt, and managing the results (e.g., output markdown to a directory, or open a PR). For input/output from the container I mount directories within the Docker container to local directories under ~/.call_claude/. I create a directory under there, clone the source code to it, output the prompt to a text file, and then grab results from that directory after Claude Code has finished running.
- rob 1y ago
  Just have Claude make a version of your script that's shareable for others, no?
  - sothatsit 1y ago
    It's just not that simple. If your scripts contain 20 things hard-coded to your setup and projects, it is not quick nor easy to remove all of those and make something configurable and easily adaptable to other people's setups and projects. Adapting the scripts to your specific setup is pretty much the entirety of the work in setting this up.
hboon 1y ago
Not the OP, but I have this fish alias. I just run `claude-docker` in my project root (where I would otherwise run `claude`). There's nothing to it. You can tweak it: alias claude-docker='docker run --mount type=bind,source=/Users/hboon/.claude,target=/home/node/.claude --mount type=bind,source=/Users/hboon/.claude.json,target=/home/node/.claude.json --mount type=bind,source=.,target=/workspace/project --workdir /workspace/project -it cc /usr/bin/fish'

anon7000 1y ago

Even locally, Claude in multiple terminal tabs/windows can do different tasks in parallel

sothatsit 1y ago
They can, but I find it harder to review if you are trying to get Claude Code to do anything non-trivial. I've seen some people make multiple git worktrees so they can have two instances of Claude Code working independently, but I found that to be tedious to manage.
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  Isn't there tooling for helping to manage this

eMPee584 1y ago

And thus, the machines managed to build trust in their harmlessness in men. Which, eventually, would turn out advantageous..

dcreater 1y ago
Yeah the point of security is missed. Given how easy it is, I doubt I'm ever going to run Claude code or any other CLI that uses remote AI servers without a devcontainer again

m_kos 1y ago

> I've never seen Claude Code do anything that git couldn't easily reverse, so I'm not that worried about that any more. I had one agent that installed something with pip and used it to rewrite my git history. It used the wrong flag and what was left was one file. I am glad I caught it before auto-commit and push triggered. It was one of my hobby projects, so not a huge deal. I can't imagine the fallout of this happening in a work environment.