Evaluations

Try Atomic Claude in an isolated Docker container before installing it on your machine. The container builds atomic from source, lays the bundle into a persistent ~/.claude, and drops you into Claude Code with a workspace that survives container removal.

Prerequisite: Docker + docker compose v2.

For contributors

If you are working in this repo:

make docker-build    # build the image (once)
make docker-up       # start Claude Code in the container

For a raw shell without the Claude TUI (useful for fast iteration):

make docker-shell

For everyone else

If you want to evaluate atomic-claude on your own project without cloning this repo:

atomic docker init
cd atomic-docker
docker compose build
docker compose run --rm atomic-eval

atomic docker init writes a self-contained Docker setup into ./atomic-docker/ (override with --target). Drop your project files into atomic-docker/tmp/workspace/ or symlink your repo into it.

How volumes work

Two directories under tmp/ are mounted into the container:

Host path	Container path	What lives here
tmp/workspace/	/workspace	Your project. Persists across runs.
tmp/claude-home/	/home/atomic/.claude	Claude config, auth tokens, memory. Persists claude login across runs.

Both are gitignored. The .gitkeep placeholders keep them in the repo so the mounts work on a fresh clone.

First-run authentication

On first launch, Claude Code prompts you to authenticate. It shows a URL and a code — open the URL in your host browser and paste the code. Auth tokens are saved in tmp/claude-home/ and persist. Subsequent launches skip the prompt.

Linux UID note

Bind mounts use the host UID. If files end up root-owned on Linux, rebuild with your UID:

make docker-build HOST_UID=$(id -u)

Mac and Windows Docker Desktop handle this transparently.

Reset

To wipe everything and start fresh:

rm -rf tmp/claude-home/* tmp/claude-home/.[!.]* tmp/workspace/* tmp/workspace/.[!.]*
touch tmp/claude-home/.gitkeep tmp/workspace/.gitkeep