Creating a codespace

About codespace creation

You can create a codespace on either GitHub.com or in Visual Studio Code. Each codespace you create is only available to you. No one else can work in your codespace.

Codespaces are associated with a specific branch of a repository and the repository cannot be empty. You can create more than one codespace per repository or even per branch. However, each user account has a limit of 10 codespaces. If you've reached the limit and want to create a new codespace, you must delete a codespace first. For more information, see "Deleting a codespace."

When you create a codespace, a number of steps happen to create and connect you to your development environment:

• Step 1: VM and storage are assigned to your codespace.
• Step 2: Container is created and your repository is cloned.
• Step 3: You can connect to the codespace.
• Step 4: Codespace continues with post-creation setup.

For more information on what happens when you create a codespace, see "Deep Dive."

You can edit code, debug, and use Git commands while developing in a codespace with Visual Studio Code. For more information, see the Visual Studio Code documentation.

You can see every available codespace that you have created at github.com/codespaces.

Access to Codespaces

Codespaces are available for repositories owned by organizations using GitHub Team and GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

When you have access to Codespaces, you'll see a "Codespaces" tab within the Code drop-down menu when you view a repository.

You'll have access to codespaces under the following conditions:

• You are a member of an organization that has enabled Codespaces and set a spending limit.
• An organization owner has granted you access to Codespaces.
• The repository is owned by the organization that has enabled Codespaces.

Organization owners can allow all members of the organization to create codespaces, limit codespace creation to selected organization members, or disable codespace creation. For more information about managing access to codespaces within your organization, see "Enable Codespaces for users in your organization."

Before Codespaces can be used in an organization, an owner or billing manager must have set a spending limit. For more information, see "About spending limits for Codespaces."

If you would like to create a codespace for a repository owned by your personal account or another user, and you have permission to create repositories in an organization that has enabled Codespaces, you can fork user-owned repositories to that organization and then create a codespace for the fork.

Creating a codespace

1. On GitHub.com, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under the repository name, use the "Branch" drop-down menu, and select the branch you want to create a codespace for.

   

3. Under the repository name, use the Code drop-down menu, and in the Codespaces tab, click New codespace.

   

   If you are a member of an organization and are creating a codespace on a repository owned by that organization, you can select the option of a different machine type. From the dialog, choose a machine type and then click Create codespace.