diff --git a/.devcontainer/.bashrc b/.devcontainer/.bashrc
index e0637b15d3..e281532264 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/.bashrc
+++ b/.devcontainer/.bashrc
@@ -24,6 +24,19 @@ alias sim-migrate="npx drizzle-kit push"
 alias sim-generate="npx drizzle-kit generate"
 alias sim-rebuild="npm run build && npm start"
 
-# Welcome message
-echo "🚀 Welcome to Sim Studio development environment!"
-echo "Type 'sim-start' to start the development server" 
\ No newline at end of file
+# Welcome message - only show once per session
+if [ -z "$SIM_WELCOME_SHOWN" ]; then
+  export SIM_WELCOME_SHOWN=1
+  
+  echo ""
+  echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+  echo "🚀 Welcome to Sim Studio development environment!"
+  echo ""
+  echo "Available commands:"
+  echo "  sim-start    - Start the development server"
+  echo "  sim-migrate  - Push schema changes to the database"
+  echo "  sim-generate - Generate new migrations"
+  echo "  sim-rebuild  - Build and start the production server"
+  echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+  echo ""
+fi 
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
index 003e38aaeb..2697cc46bc 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
+++ b/.devcontainer/Dockerfile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-FROM node:18-bullseye
+FROM node:20-bullseye
 
 # Avoid warnings by switching to noninteractive
 ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
diff --git a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
index f5de4a5971..e80c8e27c3 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
+++ b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
@@ -17,7 +17,15 @@
         },
         "[typescriptreact]": {
           "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
-        }
+        },
+        "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash",
+        "terminal.integrated.profiles.linux": {
+          "bash": {
+            "path": "/bin/bash",
+            "args": ["--login"]
+          }
+        },
+        "terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.enabled": true
       },
       "extensions": [
         "dbaeumer.vscode-eslint",
@@ -36,13 +44,15 @@
 
   "forwardPorts": [3000, 5432],
 
-  "postCreateCommand": "sh .devcontainer/post-create.sh",
+  "postCreateCommand": "bash -c 'bash .devcontainer/post-create.sh || true'",
+
+  "postStartCommand": "bash -c 'if [ ! -f ~/.bashrc ] || ! grep -q \"sim-start\" ~/.bashrc; then cp .devcontainer/.bashrc ~/.bashrc; fi'",
 
   "remoteUser": "node",
 
   "features": {
     "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/node:1": {
-      "version": "lts"
+      "version": "20"
     },
     "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/git:1": {},
     "ghcr.io/devcontainers-contrib/features/npm-package:1": {
diff --git a/.devcontainer/post-create.sh b/.devcontainer/post-create.sh
index cbae5bb93f..d033433cc0 100755
--- a/.devcontainer/post-create.sh
+++ b/.devcontainer/post-create.sh
@@ -1,12 +1,27 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
+# Exit on error, but with some error handling
 set -e
 
 echo "🔧 Setting up Sim Studio development environment..."
 
-# Install dependencies
-echo "📦 Installing npm dependencies..."
-npm install
+# Setup .bashrc
+echo "📄 Setting up .bashrc with aliases..."
+cp .devcontainer/.bashrc ~/.bashrc
+# Add to .profile to ensure .bashrc is sourced in non-interactive shells
+echo 'if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc; fi' >> ~/.profile
+
+# Clean and reinstall dependencies to ensure platform compatibility
+echo "📦 Cleaning and reinstalling npm dependencies..."
+if [ -d "node_modules" ]; then
+  echo "Removing existing node_modules to ensure platform compatibility..."
+  rm -rf node_modules
+fi
+
+# Install dependencies with platform-specific binaries
+npm install || {
+  echo "⚠️ npm install had issues but continuing setup..."
+}
 
 # Set up environment variables if .env doesn't exist
 if [ ! -f ".env" ]; then
@@ -17,18 +32,29 @@ fi
 # Run database migrations
 echo "🗃️ Running database migrations..."
 echo "Waiting for database to be ready..."
-until PGPASSWORD=postgres psql -h db -U postgres -c '\q'; do
-  echo "Database is unavailable - sleeping"
-  sleep 2
-done
+# Try to connect to the database, but don't fail the script if it doesn't work
+(
+  timeout=60
+  while [ $timeout -gt 0 ]; do
+    if PGPASSWORD=postgres psql -h db -U postgres -c '\q' 2>/dev/null; then
+      echo "Database is ready!"
+      npx drizzle-kit push
+      break
+    fi
+    echo "Database is unavailable - sleeping (${timeout}s remaining)"
+    sleep 5
+    timeout=$((timeout - 5))
+  done
+  
+  if [ $timeout -le 0 ]; then
+    echo "⚠️ Database connection timed out, skipping migrations"
+  fi
+) || echo "⚠️ Database setup had issues but continuing..."
 
-echo "Database is ready!"
-npx drizzle-kit push
-
-# Add helpful aliases to .bashrc
+# Add additional helpful aliases to .bashrc
 cat << EOF >> ~/.bashrc
 
-# Sim Studio Development Aliases
+# Additional Sim Studio Development Aliases
 alias migrate="npx drizzle-kit push"
 alias generate="npx drizzle-kit generate"
 alias dev="npm run dev"
@@ -38,11 +64,22 @@ alias lint="npm run lint"
 alias test="npm run test"
 EOF
 
-echo "✅ Development environment is ready! Here are some helpful commands:"
-echo "📦 dev - Start the development server"
-echo "🔨 build - Build the application for production"
-echo "🚀 start - Start the production server"
-echo "🧹 lint - Run ESLint"
-echo "🧪 test - Run tests"
-echo "🗃️ migrate - Push schema changes to the database"
-echo "📃 generate - Generate new migrations" 
\ No newline at end of file
+# Source the .bashrc to make aliases available immediately
+. ~/.bashrc
+
+# Clear the welcome message flag to ensure it shows after setup
+unset SIM_WELCOME_SHOWN
+
+echo ""
+echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+echo "✅ Sim Studio development environment setup complete!"
+echo ""
+echo "Your environment is now ready. A new terminal session will show"
+echo "available commands. You can start the development server with:"
+echo ""
+echo "  sim-start"
+echo "━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"
+echo ""
+
+# Exit successfully regardless of any previous errors
+exit 0 
\ No newline at end of file