Docker environment

Running the claudeDrone stack inside Docker is the alternative install path. It costs you some iteration speed (rebuilds take longer than bare-metal colcon build) and some GPU friction (Gazebo wants direct access to graphics, which makes container GPU passthrough finicky on a fresh Ubuntu host), but it pays you back in environmental reproducibility — anyone with Docker can run exactly the same versions of ROS 2, Gazebo, and ArduPilot that we run on D2.

Current status: this page is a planning placeholder. We don’t ship official Docker images yet because our day-to-day dev cycle is fast enough on bare metal that we haven’t needed them. When we do ship them, they’ll be based on the osrf/ros:jazzy-desktop upstream image with our specific Gazebo and ArduPilot pinned versions on top.

When Docker makes sense

• CI/CD pipelines — automated test runs in a consistent environment.
• Onboarding a new contributor — “clone, docker-compose up, done” beats a 6-step install guide that requires manual debugging.
• Reproducing a specific historical experiment — pinning the exact versions of every dependency from six months ago.

When Docker doesn’t make sense

• Day-to-day RL experimentation with frequent code changes — every iteration triggers a rebuild that’s slower than the equivalent on bare metal.
• GUI-heavy debugging in Gazebo Sim — X11 passthrough works but gz sim is touchier than typical GUI apps.
• Realtime constraints near the edge of what the host can handle — the container overhead is usually negligible, but on marginal hardware it pushes you over.

Planned compose layout

# deploy/docker-compose.yml (planned)
services:
  ros2-gazebo:
    image: claudedrone/ros2-gazebo:jazzy
    network_mode: host             # for DDS discovery
    privileged: true               # for GPU access
    volumes:
      - ${HOME}/git/proj/aerosearch:/workspace
      - /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro
    environment:
      - DISPLAY=${DISPLAY}
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
  ardupilot-sitl:
    image: claudedrone/ardupilot-sitl:copter-4.6
    network_mode: host

Where to go next

• Host PC setup — the bare-metal alternative
• Roadmap H2 2026 — when official Docker images might ship
• Installation hub — sibling install guides