Updated devcontainer, seamless switching between build environments

[aristarkhovNV]

Description

Make container↔host dev switching seamless for the build tree. Previously a single shared build/ directory was reused across the dev container and the host, whose repo mount paths and uv-managed Python locations differ. This left the NumPy build venv's bin/python as a dangling symlink and FetchContent _deps sub-caches pointing at the other environment's paths, surfacing as a confusing "stale venv" CMake error on every switch. The dev container now builds into its own build-devcontainer/ directory (via cmake.buildDirectory) so neither environment's baked-in absolute paths can collide with the other's. SetupPython.cmake now detects the dangling bin/python symlink, names its missing target, explains it came from another environment, and directs the user to remove the build directory (or run cmake --fresh) and reconfigure.

Fixes #(issue)

Type of change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)
• Documentation update

Testing

Checklist

• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines
• I have run the linter and formatter with SKIP=check-copyright-year pre-commit run --all-files
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation
• I have added tests that prove my fix/feature works (or explained why not)
• I have signed off all my commits (git commit -s) per the DCO

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features
  • Enhanced the development container setup with additional tooling and a dedicated build output directory for CMake builds.
• Bug Fixes
  • Improved Python build environment reliability by reusing working virtual environments when present and reporting more precise failures when the interpreter is missing or broken.
• Chores
  • Updated dev container feature lock metadata and adjusted ignore rules to exclude the build output directory.

[coderabbitai]

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR updates devcontainer configuration by pinning feature lock versions/digests, adding the patchelf apt package, setting a cmake.buildDirectory VS Code setting, and ignoring the new build directory in .gitignore. It also reworks the CMake Python build venv logic to detect a usable existing venv via interpreter version checks, and reports symlink-aware errors when the interpreter is broken, replacing the prior stale-venv detection.

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately reflects the devcontainer and build-environment switching changes in the PR.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch aaristarkhov/devcontainer

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@cmake/SetupPython.cmake`:
- Around line 169-189: The fatal error in SetupPython.cmake is incorrectly
appending “(target does not exist)” whenever _venv_python is a symlink, even
though _venv_usable may be false for other reasons. Update the message
construction near the _venv_symlink_detail block so it only reports a missing
symlink target when the target is actually absent, and otherwise describe the
interpreter failure generically; keep the logic around _venv_usable, IS_SYMLINK,
and file(READ_SYMLINK) aligned with the real failure mode.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 90c92d6 and 5955c86.

📒 Files selected for processing (4)

• .devcontainer/devcontainer-lock.json
• .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
• .gitignore
• cmake/SetupPython.cmake