Using Hocus to run faster development environments

Hocus is a self-hosted application designed to streamline the setup of development environments by providing disposable, fully configured environments defined as code, which can be swiftly launched from a browser. It serves as an alternative to platforms like Gitpod and GitHub Codespaces, offering seamless integration with various Git providers through the SSH protocol and mimicking CI system functionality by automatically prebuilding environments for all branches on every commit. Hocus supports integration with VS Code, allowing developers to use their preferred IDE while maintaining control over their environments with full root access and support for Docker and nested KVM. Hocus enhances collaboration through features like shared environment variables and monorepo support, simplifying project management and team consistency. The setup process involves configuring Hocus with Docker Compose, and projects are managed through a dashboard where users can create workspaces and prebuilds, all defined in a hocus.yml file that specifies project settings, tasks, and required IDE extensions.