What persists
On this page
The container itself is disposable and its root filesystem is normally
read-only. Your project tree and the persistent directories DevCapsule mounts
from your computer survive when the container stops; anything written outside
those mounts—such as files in /tmp or OS packages installed during a session
with development sudo—disappears when the container is removed.
Run devcapsule project info (or devcapsule project info --json for slot
names) to inspect the exact mounts and host backing paths for your checkout:
| In the capsule | Kind | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
The project folder (/workspace/<slug> or project.mount) |
source |
Your working tree, shared directly with your computer |
/home/devcapsule (home) |
durable |
The capsule user's home: shell history, dotfiles, ~/xtras |
/opt/xtras |
durable |
Alias of /home/devcapsule/xtras; see Extra tools |
~/.claude, ~/.codex, ~/.gemini |
durable |
Agent configuration and session state: Claude Code and Codex also store interactive sign-ins here, while Antigravity CLI keeps settings and local state under ~/.gemini and stores credentials in its keyring or per-run variables; see Sign in and defaults |
IDE configuration and plugins (<ide>/config, <ide>/plugins, <ide>/user-data, <ide>/extensions) |
durable |
Keymaps, themes, editor settings, and installed plugins or extensions; see IDE preferences and plugins |
Eclipse's /ide-workspace (eclipse/workspace) |
durable |
Workspace .metadata/ preferences, imported project references, and local history; keep source files in the project folder |
IDE log and system directories (<ide>/log, <ide>/system, <ide>/cache) |
state, cache |
IDE logs and reconstructable indexes and caches; caches may be cleared |
/var/log/devcapsule |
state |
This session's component logs, rotated per component; older session directories are pruned within a per-checkout budget (256 MiB by default; see Diagnostics and logs) |
~/.cache |
cache |
Reconstructable user-tool caches |
/tmp, /var/tmp, /run, /dev/shm, and the container filesystem |
temporary |
Lost as soon as the container is removed |
Where backing directories live
By default, DevCapsule creates per-checkout durable, state, and cache
directories under your user's XDG data, state, and cache roots
(~/.local/share/devcapsule, ~/.local/state/devcapsule, and
~/.cache/devcapsule, or under $DEVCAPSULE_CONFIG_HOME when you use an
isolated configuration home).
A second checkout or git worktree of the same repository gets its own
projects/by-path/<checkout-id> directories automatically, so concurrent
sessions do not overwrite each other's locks or indexes. When you want to reuse
or share an existing host directory across checkouts that you run one at a
time, point the slot at that path with devcapsule project config bind <slot> host-directory:PATH or devcapsule project state adopt --from PATH <slot>;
see IDE preferences and plugins and
Configuration nodes.
Persistence is not backup. It keeps a checkout's local state across container restarts on one computer; it does not sync files to another machine, and it never replaces Git for your source code.