Isopod Dashboard

A Podman Desktop extension for managing isopod AI-coding sandboxes.

Features (v1)

• Boxes page — every isopod box with status, SSH host, port, window color, and engine; start, stop, and open a box in VSCodium from the row.
• Container menu action — "Open in VSCodium" on isopod containers in the stock Containers tab (requires boxes labeled io.isopod.box).
• Egress panel — current egress mode and firewall state, add a domain to the allow-list, and live-tail the egress proxy access log to watch what the agent inside a box tried to reach.

The extension is a thin UI over the isopod CLI: every operation shells out; no isopod logic is reimplemented. Data flows through the JSON contract in docs/cli-contract.md (requires isopod >= 2.9 with --json support).

Requirements

• Podman Desktop >= 1.10
• isopod >= 2.9 on PATH (with --json output)

Install

In Podman Desktop, go to Extensions > Install custom extension from OCI image and enter:

ghcr.io/jonathanmcsweet/isopod-dashboard:latest

Pin a specific version by replacing latest with a released tag (e.g. :0.8.3). The extension then appears on the Extensions page and adds the Isopod entry to the left sidebar. See Requirements above — the isopod CLI must be on your PATH for box and egress reads to work.

Each release is published from a v<version> git tag by the release workflow.

Development

Prerequisites

• pnpm (the repo pins its package manager / build allowlist in pnpm-workspace.yaml)
• Podman Desktop >= 1.10 (to load and run the extension)
• isopod >= 2.9 on PATH — the extension shells out to it; without it the UI loads but every box/egress read fails.

Install and build

pnpm install     # deps + git hooks
pnpm build       # backend (dist/extension.cjs) + webview (dist/webview/)

Load into Podman Desktop

1. Run pnpm build so dist/ exists (package.json is the manifest, dist/extension.cjs the entrypoint).
2. Enable developer mode: Preferences > Extensions > Development Mode. Local extensions cannot be loaded until this is on.
3. Extensions > Install custom extension from a folder, pointing at this repo root. Confirm it appears and is enabled on the Extensions page — the command and sidebar entry below exist only once it activates.
4. Open the dashboard either way:
   • press F1 to open the command palette and run "Isopod: Open dashboard", or
   • click the Isopod icon in the left navigation sidebar.

If neither shows up, the extension didn't activate — check the Extensions page and the dev console (View > Toggle Developer Tools) for errors. To iterate, run pnpm watch and reload the extension from the Extensions page.

Test and verify

Run these green before committing:

pnpm typecheck     # tsc --noEmit + svelte-check (keep at 0 errors)
pnpm test          # vitest unit tests (src/**/*.spec.ts)
pnpm lint          # Biome lint (lint:fix applies safe fixes)
pnpm format:check  # dprint (format applies)

Tests run against a stubbed @podman-desktop/api, so they need neither a running Podman Desktop nor isopod. To exercise the real CLI path, create a box with isopod, then confirm it appears on the Boxes page and that start/stop and Open in VSCodium work from the row.

Layout

• src/ — extension backend (loaded by Podman Desktop; talks to the CLI and the container engine API)
• src/protocol.ts — message types shared between backend and webview
• frontend/ — the webview page (Svelte 5 + @podman-desktop/ui-svelte + Tailwind 4)
• docs/cli-contract.md — the isopod --json output contract

Known limitations

• isopod egress log may need root to read the proxy log; the tail surfaces the error in the panel if so.
• Applying egress rules (isopod egress apply) is not done from the UI; the panel tells you the command to run.
• The Containers-tab menu item only appears on boxes carrying the io.isopod.box label (isopod adds it at create time in versions that ship it; older boxes need recreation).

License

Apache-2.0