After over one year of intensive work, we are proud to announce the public Beta of Gitpod.

Gitpod is an online IDE which can be launched from any GitHub page. Simply prefix any GitHub-URL with “https://gitpod.io#” or use our browser extension that adds a button to GitHub pages.

Within seconds, Gitpod provides you with a fully working development environment, including a VS Code-powered IDE and a cloud-based Linux container configured specifically for the project at hand.

Yet Another Cloud IDE?

Gitpod is not another cloud IDE, aiming at replacing desktop development. Instead, Gitpod is a natural extension to GitHub. The limited editing capabilities of GitHub are far too often forcing context switches to our local machines. Gitpod extends our life on GitHub.

Also, Gitpod is super simple: You don’t maintain your projects or workspaces using overwhelming and complicated dashboards. Instead, any configuration is safely stored and versioned on GitHub.

Stay In The GitHub Flow

Gitpod is highly contextual, such that it opens the IDE in the correct mode depending on the context:

If you are looking at a particular file of a certain commit on GitHub, starting a Gitpod workspace will check out the right version and open the file you’ve been looking at in the IDE.

Starting a Gitpod workspace from an issue will automatically create a branch and preconfigure the commit message.

Starting Gitpod from a pull request beams your right into code review mode.

GitHub Integration

Once you are in the IDE, you can interact with GitHub in various ways. Besides the obvious Git integration, you can do things like commenting inline in editors, approving and even merging PRs.