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 accessing the directory files from within the run.

Initialize a repo¶

To use a directory with dstack apply, it must first be initialized as a repo by running dstack init. The directory can be either a regular local 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 local directory¶

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

Specify the repo¶

By default, dstack apply uses the current directory as a repo and requires dstack init. You can change this by explicitly specifying the repo to use for dstack apply.

Pass the repo path¶

To use a specific directory as the repo, specify its path using -P (or --repo):

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

Pass a remote Git repo URL¶

To use a remote Git repo without cloning it locally, specify the repo URL with -P (or --repo):

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

Automatic initialization¶

When specifying the repo with -P (or --repo), the repo is initialized automatically and dstack init is not required. If you use a private Git repo, you can pass Git credentials to dstack apply using --token or --git-identity.

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