If you are in DevOps, we have good news for you. Canonical has launched Workshop, a new classic snap for launching reproducible, sandboxed Ubuntu development environments from a YAML configuration file.
Announced today, Workshop is designed to reduce the time developers spend configuring dependencies, SDKs, and workstation-specific tooling. Environments are configured once and can be reproduced across multiple machines, including development and deployment systems.
As I mentioned earlier, Workshop uses YAML files to define environments. These can be version-controlled and shared among contributors, integrating setup into the project itself. In other words, Workshop environments can be easily created, upgraded, or removed with just a few commands.
Canonical positions Workshop for modern development workflows, particularly those using agentic AI tools. The tool can retrieve SDKs such as Ollama, OpenCode, NVIDIA CUDA, and AMD ROCm via configuration files, enabling developers to assemble toolchains for AI, GPU, and other advanced workloads without manual setup on each machine.
Regarding security, environments run in unprivileged system containers, reducing the attack surface. SDKs use a consistent mechanism to request access to host resources, including desktop access for GUI applications and the host SSH agent.
Additionally, Workshop enforces consistent access controls across environments, removing the need for developers to manage access for each container or tool.
The platform also standardizes how host resources are exposed to contained environments. Rather than using custom scripts or manual path handling, it provides access to mounts, devices, and network services through a unified interface.
The tool requires LXD 6.8 or newer. Canonical provides the following installation commands:
sudo snap install --channel=6/stable lxd
sudo snap install --classic workshopCode language: Bash (bash)For additional details, see the announcement or refer to the Workshop’s documentation.
