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Theia IDE

What is Theia?​

Theia is an open-source, browser-based IDE with a VS Code-like editor, integrated terminal, and extension system. Running it in a container gives you a full development environment reachable from any browser, useful for remote work, pairing, or coding from a machine without your usual local setup. Laradock builds it from the official theiaide/theia image.

Start Theia​

docker compose up -d ide-theia

Stop Theia​

docker compose stop ide-theia

This stops the container. The editor state itself isn't stored in a Laradock-managed volume, only your project files (via the code mount below) persist independently of the container.

Configuration​

All settings live in ide-theia/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
IDE_THEIA_PORT987Host-side port Theia is published on (host:3000, Theia listens on 3000 inside the container).

Open the editor​

docker compose up -d ide-theia

Open http://localhost:987 (or your custom IDE_THEIA_PORT). ${APP_CODE_PATH_HOST} is mounted into the container at /home/project, so Theia opens the same project code the rest of your Laradock containers work with.

ide-theia/Dockerfile also raises fs.inotify.max_user_watches to 524288 as root before switching back to the theia user, this avoids file-watcher errors ("ENOSPC") on projects with a large number of files.

Common issues​

  • Port already in use on your host. Another service (or another Laradock project) is already bound to 987. Change IDE_THEIA_PORT in .env and restart.
  • File-watcher / "too many open files" errors on large projects. The Dockerfile already raises fs.inotify.max_user_watches, but this setting is applied inside the container's own namespace; on some Docker Desktop setups the host's inotify limit still applies. Raise the host limit too if you keep hitting it.
  • Editing files but no changes showing up in other containers. Confirm APP_CODE_PATH_HOST in .env points at the same project folder that php-fpm/nginx/etc. use, Theia only sees whatever is mounted to /home/project.
  • Blank page or connection refused. Give the container a few seconds after docker compose up; check docker compose logs ide-theia for startup errors before assuming it's a port issue.

Need an API spec editor instead of a full IDE? See Swagger Editor. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.