Claude Code Development Container

A secure Docker container for running Claude Code (Anthropic's agentic coding tool) in isolation, with awesome-claude-skills pre-installed.

Features

• Claude Code v2.0.64 - Specific version pinned for stability
• Browser OAuth - Click the URL to log in with your Claude.ai account
• Non-root execution - Runs as unprivileged node user (UID 1000)
• Host isolation - The container runs as an unprivileged user and cannot escalate to root. However, it has full read/write access to the mounted workspace directory
• awesome-claude-skills - 24+ pre-installed skills from ComposioHQ
• Persistent config - Authentication and settings survive container restarts
• Dev tools included - git, gh CLI, fzf, zsh, Python 3, and more

Prerequisites

• Docker 20.10+
• Make
• A Claude.ai account (or Anthropic API key)

Quick Start

# 1. Build the container
make build

# 2. Run Claude Code
make run

# 3. Click the authentication URL that appears
# 4. Log in with your Claude.ai account
# 5. Start coding!

With API Key

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-xxx make run-api

Commands

Command	Description
make build	Build the Docker image
make run	Run Claude Code (browser authentication)
make run-api	Run with ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable
make shell	Start a zsh shell in the container
make skills	List available Claude Code skills
make update-skills	Update skills from GitHub
make version	Show installed Claude Code version
make clean	Remove the Docker image
make purge	Remove image and all data volumes
make help	Show help message

Security Model

This container provides isolation through Docker's security features:

Protection	How
No root on host	Runs as node user (UID 1000), not root
Privilege escalation blocked	--security-opt=no-new-privileges flag
Filesystem isolation	Only mounted workspace is accessible
Persistent auth	Credentials stored in Docker volume, not on host

What the container CAN access:

• Your mounted workspace directory (current directory when you run make)
• The internet (for Claude API, GitHub, npm, etc.)

What the container CANNOT do:

• Gain root access to your host system
• Access files outside the mounted workspace
• Escalate privileges

Included Skills

This container includes 24+ skills from awesome-claude-skills:

Development: artifacts-builder, changelog-generator, developer-growth-analysis

Business: brand-guidelines, competitive-ads-extractor, domain-name-brainstormer, internal-comms, lead-research-assistant

Writing: content-research-writer, meeting-insights-analyzer

Creative: canvas-design, image-enhancer, slack-gif-creator, theme-factory, video-downloader, youtube-transcript

Productivity: file-organizer, invoice-organizer, raffle-winner-picker, spreadsheet-analyzer

To use a skill, just describe what you want:

"Help me organize my invoice files"
"Create a changelog from recent commits"
"Analyze this meeting transcript"

Adding Official Anthropic Skills

You can also install Anthropic's official skills (document creation, enterprise workflows) from inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills
/plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

See anthropics/skills for more details.

Workspace

The current directory (where you run make) is mounted at /workspace inside the container.

# Run from your project directory
cd /path/to/your/project
make -f /path/to/claude-container/Makefile run

# Or copy Makefile to your project
cp /path/to/claude-container/Makefile .
make run

Data Persistence

These Docker volumes persist across container restarts:

Volume	Contents
claude-code-config	Authentication, settings, Claude config
claude-code-history	Command history

To completely reset:

make purge

Customization

Different Claude Code Version

# In Makefile, change:
CLAUDE_VERSION := 2.0.64

# Or build directly:
docker build --build-arg CLAUDE_CODE_VERSION=2.0.70 -t claude-code-dev .

Timezone

docker build --build-arg TZ=America/New_York -t claude-code-dev .

Troubleshooting

Authentication fails

• Make sure you're clicking the full URL (including any tokens)
• Try make purge to reset cached credentials

Permission denied

• The container runs as non-root, which is intentional
• Check that your workspace directory is writable

Skills not showing

make shell
ls ~/.claude/skills/

References

• Claude Code npm package (v2.0.64)
• Claude Code Documentation
• awesome-claude-skills - Community skills (pre-installed)
• anthropics/skills - Official Anthropic skills
• Anthropic

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

Claude Code itself is subject to Anthropic's terms of service.