Repos¶

Running a dev environment, task, or service with dstack apply in a directory mounts the contents of that directory to the container’s /workflow directory and sets it as the container’s current working directory. This allows the configuration to access the files from the directory.

Initialize a repo¶

Before using dstack apply in a directory, initialize that directory first as a repo by running dstack init.

The directory can be either a normal directory or a cloned Git repo.

dstack init is not required if you pass -P (or --repo) to dstack apply (see below).

Git credentials¶

If the directory is a cloned Git repo, dstack init grants the dstack server access by uploading the current user's default Git credentials, ensuring that dstack can clone the Git repo when running the container.

To use custom credentials, pass them directly with --token (GitHub token) or --git-identity (path to a private SSH key).

The dstack server stores Git credentials individually for each dstack user and encrypts them if encryption is enabled.

.gitignore and folder size¶

If the directory is cloned Git repo, dstack apply uploads to the dstack server only local changes. If the directory is not a cloned Git repo, it uploads the entire directory.

Uploads are limited to 2MB. Use .gitignore to exclude unnecessary files from being uploaded.

Initialize as a regular directory¶

If the directory is a cloned Git repo but you want to initialize it as a regular directory, use --local with dstack init.

Override the repo¶

You can customize the default repo settings in several ways.

Pass the repo path¶

By default, dstack apply uses the current folder as the repo.

To specify a different folder, pass its path using -P (or --repo):

$ dstack apply -f .dstack.yml -P ../parent_dir

Pass a remote Git repo URL¶

Run a configuration directly from a remote Git repo without cloning it locally by passing the repo URL with -P (or --repo):

$ dstack apply -f .dstack.yml -P https://github.com/dstackai/dstack.git

Automatic initialization¶

When overriding the repo with -P (or --repo), pass Git credentials directly using --token or --git-identity to skip dstack init.

Do not use a repo¶

To run a configuration without a repo (the /workflow directory inside the container will be empty), use --no-repo:

$ dstack apply -f .dstack.yml --no-repo

What's next?¶

Read about dev environments, tasks, services