I've written before about Codespaces from Visual Studio Online / GitHub and even interviewed a PM on the team. I really like the service! During the run-up to Ignite, the team posted an update.
Visual Studio Codespaces is consolidating into GitHub Codespaces
What does this mean? Here are a few thoughts of mine that may be helpful.
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This move puts the Codespace "closer" to the repo.
The experience to create a Codespace is streamlined. The button that you choose to clone a repo is now extended to include the capability to create a Codespace.
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The experience inside of VSCode is the same. 👍
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GH has a page that will show all of your Codespaces. So that experience translates as well.
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Microsoft has not commented on pricing yet. Like most Microsoft cloud services, usage of the beta is free. I would expect, however, that the billing will come thru your GitHub account instead on Azure Subscription. I believe that Codespace usage will be allocated similar to Action minutes/month.
If you are not yet in the preview, you can request access here: https://github.com/features/codespaces/signup.