`devpod up --recreate` fails with "symlink .gitignore → .dockerignore: file exists"

[lwabish]

What happened?

Running devpod up <workspace> --recreate fails with a symlink conflict error:

info  symlink .gitignore /root/.devpod/agent/contexts/default/workspaces/<workspace>/content/.dockerignore: file exists
fatal Process exited with status 1
      run agent command
      github.com/loft-sh/devpod/pkg/devcontainer/sshtunnel.ExecuteCommand.func2
        .../pkg/devcontainer/sshtunnel/sshtunnel.go:129

The workspace content directory on the remote is not cleaned up before re-syncing, so stale files cause the symlink creation to fail.

What did you expect to happen instead?

--recreate should rebuild the dev container from scratch. Stale files (including .dockerignore) in the remote content/ directory should be removed before re-syncing.

How can we reproduce the bug? (as minimally and precisely as possible)

1. Create a workspace from a local folder source: devpod up <local-path>
2. Run devpod up <workspace> --recreate --debug
3. The command fails immediately after the folder upload step

My devcontainer.json:

{
    "name": "..."
}

Local Environment:

• DevPod Version: v0.6.15
• Operating System: mac
• ARCH of the OS: ARM64

DevPod Provider:

• Local/remote provider: ssh

Anything else we need to know?

The fix likely belongs in up.go: prepareWorkspace or downloadLocalFolder — stale files/symlinks in content/ should be removed before extract.Extract runs.

[YassineElbouchaibi]

Hello! I recommend raising on https://github.com/skevetter/devpod as the main repo is unmaintained.