Remote SSH + Anysphere Dev Containers + podman does't work

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Somewhere else…

Describe the Bug

Extensions Anysphere Dev Containers. The Docker path has been set to podman, yet logs reveal the system still executes docker info instead of podman. Wrapper scripts for Docker also fail to resolve this, indicating the problem stems from this particular configuration setting.

Steps to Reproduce

SSH remote linux server
modify Dev Containers docker executable path to podman
path setting does’t work.

Expected Behavior

path setting should work properly

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Snipaste_2026-01-30_10-49-47.png
Snipaste_2026-01-30_10-49-47.png1174×914 66.5 KB

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Version: 2.3.41 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 2ca326e0d1ce10956aea33d54c0e2d8c13c58a30
Date: 2026-01-16T19:14:00.150Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

4

Hey, thanks for the report.

Unfortunately, Podman isn’t officially supported in Anysphere Dev Containers. The extension expects a specific Docker API response format, and Podman doesn’t always provide it.

The Docker Path setting was fixed for Docker in version 1.0.8 (see this thread: Dev Containers extension does not always honor Docker Path setting), but Podman is a separate case due to API differences.

Options:

  • Use Docker instead of Podman for Dev Containers in Cursor
  • Temporary workaround: use the Cursor CLI to work with your code

I get that this limitation is annoying. A similar request has already come up here: Dev Containers with Podman

If Docker really won’t work for you, let me know why Podman is critical for your team. That’ll help us prioritize the feature request.