Proposal for a New Way to Build Container Images

Docker’s BuildKit improved on the original Docker builder but is argued to retain inefficiencies and complex configuration requirements, particularly around uploading entire repositories as build contexts, manually ordering COPY and RUN commands for caching, and managing multi-stage builds. The proposal advocates cloning repositories directly inside builders, eliminating Dockerfile COPY statements, making all repository files initially available while limiting each command’s cache key and sandbox to its declared inputs, and enabling cache misses to be followed by later cache hits. It also recommends merging independent multi-stage build outputs, using an entire container registry rather than selected images as a shared cache source, avoiding default layer compression in cloud environments where network transfers can be faster, and supporting multiline RUN scripts. A prototype built on the RWX runtime is said to demonstrate faster builds and a simpler developer experience, with early access available through its creator.

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