Yes, it is a real thing. Read design docs to understand what this is.

In Windows please install a few Linux command line tool simulators:

1. Install Chocolatey

2. Install following tools (make, sed, grep) in elevated command line:

   REM in elevated command line
   choco install make sed grep checksum awk jq gnuwin32-coreutils.portable

3. Disable Auto CRLF:

   git config --global core.autocrlf true
   

No specific preparation steps required at the moment.

• If you are editing the files on Windows box over Samba share (which maps file modes), you can consider to disable file mode check:

  git config core.fileMode false
  

For 'The Box' services and containers, dive into this link

Reach out to cosine_catalyst@microsoft.com to get more info how to check-in code and contribute.