VSCode Devcontainers broke unexpectedly (probably because of unexpected extension update)

[Zocker1999NET]

• VSCode Version: 1.114.0
• Local OS Version: Windows 11 25H2 10.0.26200
• Remote OS Version: irrelevant
• Remote Extension/Connection Type: Dev Containers

Container Logs

[2026-04-07T21:07:18.662Z] Start: Run: podman -v
[2026-04-07T21:07:19.571Z] Stop (909 ms): Run: podman -v
[2026-04-07T21:07:19.571Z] Start: Resolving Remote
[2026-04-07T21:07:19.609Z] Start: Run: podman compose version --short
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.444Z] Stop (1835 ms): Run: podman compose version --short
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.446Z] Start: Run: podman compose version --short
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.719Z] findLocalWindowsExecutable: Exectuable 'podman compose' not found on PATH <<<truncated>>>
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.736Z] Error: Exectuable 'podman compose' not found on PATH <<<truncated>>>
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.737Z]     at AS (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:149:4280)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.738Z]     at async c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:149:1655
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.739Z]     at async wt (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:148:14916)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.739Z]     at async c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:465:2193
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.740Z]     at async ia (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:465:103)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.740Z]     at async k9 (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:412:3470)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.740Z]     at async AZ (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:485:4043)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.740Z]     at async uC (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:485:4989)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.741Z]     at async L5 (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:666:205)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.741Z]     at async G5 (c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js:665:15084)
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.811Z] Stop (6844 ms): Run: C:\Users\of4710\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js up --user-data-folder c:\Users\of4710\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers\data --docker-path podman --docker-compose-path podman compose --container-session-data-folder /tmp/devcontainers-7ef14ae3-bfac-4b59-8bf8-1c82fc0339a81775596019944 --workspace-folder c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports --workspace-mount-consistency cached --gpu-availability detect --id-label devcontainer.local_folder=c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports --id-label devcontainer.config_file=c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports\.devcontainer\devcontainer.json --log-level debug --log-format json --config c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports\.devcontainer\devcontainer.json --default-user-env-probe loginInteractiveShell --mount type=volume,source=vscode,target=/vscode,external=true --skip-post-create --update-remote-user-uid-default on --mount-workspace-git-root --include-configuration --include-merged-configuration
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.813Z] Exit code 1
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.846Z] Command failed: C:\Users\of4710\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe c:\Users\of4710\.vscode\extensions\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers-0.447.0\dist\spec-node\devContainersSpecCLI.js up --user-data-folder c:\Users\of4710\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\globalStorage\ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers\data --docker-path podman --docker-compose-path podman compose --container-session-data-folder /tmp/devcontainers-7ef14ae3-bfac-4b59-8bf8-1c82fc0339a81775596019944 --workspace-folder c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports --workspace-mount-consistency cached --gpu-availability detect --id-label devcontainer.local_folder=c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports --id-label devcontainer.config_file=c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports\.devcontainer\devcontainer.json --log-level debug --log-format json --config c:\Users\of4710\.projects_local\windows-reports\.devcontainer\devcontainer.json --default-user-env-probe loginInteractiveShell --mount type=volume,source=vscode,target=/vscode,external=true --skip-post-create --update-remote-user-uid-default on --mount-workspace-git-root --include-configuration --include-merged-configuration
[2026-04-07T21:07:21.849Z] Exit code 1

Steps to Reproduce (hopefully):

1. Install Podman Desktop, a Podman machine based on WSL & docker-compose, all via Podman Desktop
2. Configure dev.containers.dockerComposePath to "podman compose"
3. Open a project with a .devcontainers config
4. Select "> Dev Containers: Reopen in Container"
5. See following error message: "Docker Compose required. Command not found: 'podman compose'"

Does this issue occur when you try this locally?: irrelevant
Does this issue occur when you try this locally and all extensions are disabled?: not possible, because this also disables dev containers extension

What triggers me is that this worked today & now fails in the evening.

And from reading the error log, the issue is obvious: The extension now checks/assumes/requires that the setting is exactly the name of an existing binary. And while writing this, I remembered that I selected "docker-compose" in Podman Desktop (oppossed to "podman-compose", mind the hyphen). And this selection explained to me that "podman compose" (missing hyphen) is actually just an alias for the one I select in Podman Desktop. But its still annoying that this just fails suddenly after the PC was suspended for a few hours, with the error message (most important the dialog) being not actually helpful. And I probably only remembered it that fast because I just set up Podman Desktop & Devcontainers on this PC in the last week. And, afterall, IMO it is more resilient to configure "podman compose" instead of "docker-compose" as I, as an enduser, use Podman, and Podman just utilizies "docker-compose" as its Compose implementation.

My request from is: could you please either restore old behavior, or at least make the message more helpful?
(e.g. by directing users to the setting they need to change, and maybe add a check saying that when "docker-compose" is available instead, then direct users to try that out, or something like this) Thx

[chrmarti]

dev.containers.dockerComposePath expects a single command and doesn't support arguments like the subcommand. Setting dev.containers.dockerPath to podman should actually work because we default to using that with compose as the subcommand.

[Zocker1999NET]

Setting dev.containers.dockerPath to podman should actually work because we default to using that with compose as the subcommand.

oh, thats actually good to know. This could maybe be documented?

dev.containers.dockerComposePath expects a single command and doesn't support arguments like the subcommand.

I would say now, because I'm sure I worked at least a few days or even one week with the other config without any problems (through at least two full restarts of VSC).