Faster Docker builds using a remote BuildKit instance

Remote BuildKit on AWS can accelerate Docker builds by offloading compute-intensive work to a powerful EC2 instance and persisting Docker layer caches on an attached EBS volume, allowing shared reuse across an organization’s CI workflows. The proposed Terraform setup provisions a c5a.4xlarge instance, configures GitHub Actions authentication through AWS OIDC and IAM roles, and exposes the BuildKit daemon on port 9999 for use with Docker Buildx in GitHub Actions. After configuring repository secrets with the AWS account information and instance address, workflows can direct builds to the remote builder; an example showed a first uncached build taking 6 minutes 22 seconds and a subsequent cached build taking 1 minute 34 seconds. This approach is most useful when base Docker layers change infrequently, but a single always-running instance has limitations for larger teams, including no autoscaling during concurrent demand, ongoing infrastructure costs, and potential security risks from sharing one build environment across projects.

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