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opencontainers
image-spec
Go2016–2025
opencontainers / image-spec

image-spec

OCI Image Format

23Distinct people
27Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4.5KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

OCI Image Format

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 7:02:50 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year27 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-04-14 01:32:48 UTC to 2025-09-17 01:24:52 UTC.

02462016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
OCI Image Format Specification The OCI Image Format project creates and maintains the software shipping container image format spec (OCI Image Format). The specification can be found here. This repository also provides Go types, intra-blob validation tooling, and JSON Schema. The Go types and validation should be compatible with the current Go release; earlier Go releases are not supported. Additional documentation about how this group operates: Code of Conduct Roadmap Releases Running an OCI Image The OCI Image Format partner project is the OCI Runtime Spec project. The Runtime Specification outlines how to run a "filesystem bundle" that is unpacked on disk. At a high-level an OCI implementation would download an OCI Image then unpack that image into an OCI Runtime filesystem bundle. At this point the OCI Runtime Bundle would be run by an OCI Runtime. This entire workflow supports the UX that users have come to expect from container engines like Docker and rkt: primarily, the ability to run an image with no additional arguments: docker run example.com/org/app:v1.0.0 rkt run example.com/org/app,version=v1.0.0 To support this UX the OCI Image Format contains sufficient information to launch the application on the target platform (e.g. command, arguments, environment variables, etc). Distributing an OCI Image The OCI Distribution Spec Project defines an API protocol to facilitate and standardize the distribution of content. This API includes support for pushing and pulling OCI images to an OCI conformant registry. FAQ Q: What happens to AppC or Docker Image Formats? A: Existing formats can continue to be a proving ground for technologies, as needed. The OCI Image Format project strives to provide a dependable open specification that can be shared between different tools and be evolved for years or decades of compatibility; as the deb and rpm format have. Find more FAQ on the OCI site. Roadmap The GitHub milestones lay out the path to the future improvements. Contributing Development happens on GitHub for the spec. Issues are used for bugs and actionable items and longer discussions can happen on the mailing list. The specification and code is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license found in the LICENSE file of this repository. Discuss your design The project welcomes submissions, but please let everyone know what you are working on. Before undertaking a nontrivial change to this specification, send mail to the mailing list to discuss what you plan to do. This gives everyone a chance to validate the design, helps prevent duplication of effort, and ensures that the idea fits. It also guarantees that the design is sound before code is written; a GitHub pull-request is not the place for high-level discussions. Typos and grammatical errors can go straight to a pull-request. When in doubt, start on the mailing-list. Meetings Please see the OCI org repository README for the most up-to-date information on OCI contributor and maintainer meeting schedules. You can also find links to meeting agendas and minutes for all prior meetings. Mailing List You can subscribe and join the mailing list on Google Groups. Markdown style To keep consistency throughout the Markdown files in the Open Container spec all files should be formatted one sentence per line. This fixes two things: it makes diffing easier with git and it resolves fights about line wrapping length. For example, this paragraph will span three lines in the Markdown source. Git commit Sign your work The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to pass it on as an open-source patch. The rules are pretty simple: if you can certify the below (from developercertificate.org): Developer Certificate of Origin Version 1.1 Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors. 660 York Street, Suite 102, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file; or (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it. (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or the open source license(s) involved. then you just add a line to every git commit message: Signed-off-by: Joe Smith <joe@gmail.com> using your real name (sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.) You can add the sign off when creating the git commit via git commit -s. Commit Style Simple house-keeping for clean git history. Read more on How to Write a Git Commit Message or the Discussion section of git-commit(1). Separate the subject from body with a blank line Limit the subject line to 50 characters Capitalize the subject line Do not end the subject line with a period Use the imperative mood in the subject line Wrap the body at 72 characters Use the body to explain what and why vs. how If there was important/useful/essential conversation or information, copy or include a reference When possible, one keyword to sc
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

6 sources
See the implementation lists for both specs: https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/blob/master/imp... https://github.com/opencontainers/runtime-spec/blob/master/i... Now that things are 1.0 we expect many people to start implementing the spec. For example, the transition steps required to add OCI v1.0 support on-top of Docker v2.2 support for an application primarily involves changing a few strings. See the implementation notes here. https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/blob/6060c3b6c6...
In Open Container Initiative specifications are 1.0
rkt supports running Docker Images[1], Open Container Initiative (OCI) Images[2], and appc images. So, any container image this system builds will run under rkt. rkt is explicitly designed as a container engine not as a container build system. And this is because build and execute are largely separate concerns. And it leaves the door open for new build systems as demonstrated here by Google. [1] https://coreos.com/rkt/docs/latest/running-docker-images.htm... [2] https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec/issues/126#issu...
In Introducing Google Cloud Container Builder
I'm really excited to see projects like make containerized applications more available. There's a lot of awesome new projects in this space and I'm hoping that we as a community can come together and adopt a standard API for compatibility across all tools. CNR[0] is the name of the effort that is essentially extending OCI[1] to support apps (Helm, KPM, Kubernetes, Docker Compose, Docker DAB). [0]: https://github.com/cn-app-registry/ [1]: https://github.com/opencontainers/image-spec
In KubeApps – Discover and launch Kubernetes-ready apps using Helm

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