[bitwize]

It makes it easy to point the tool at a Git repo, have it automagically create a containerized environment for that repo with all its dependencies, and open Visual Studio Code on the codebase inside that remote containerized environment.

Devcontainer was created by Microsoft to support Visual Studio Code's remote development features, so it works best in Visual Studio Code. Inasmuch as other IDEs support it, that's up to the IDE vendor.

[salamander014]

So this is a config standard for the infrastructure underneath something like remote vscode / devcontainers?

[bitwize]

Pretty much, yeah. It contains all the info necessary to tell Docker how to build/deploy the container, and how to configure the editor to work in it. The goal is turnkey setup of the software, its environment, and the user's IDE so that developers don't have to waste days doing that by hand.