pack makes it easy for

• application developers to use buildpacks to convert code into runnable images
• buildpack authors to develop and package buildpacks for distribution

• Building app images using build
  • Example: Building using the default builder image
  • Example: Building using a specified buildpack
  • Building explained
• Updating app images using rebase
  • Example: Rebasing an app image
  • Rebasing explained
• Working with builders using create-builder
  • Example: Creating a builder from buildpacks
  • Builders explained
• Managing stacks
  • Example: Adding a stack
  • Example: Updating a stack
  • Example: Deleting a stack
  • Example: Setting the default stack
  • Listing stacks
• Resources
• Development

pack build enables app developers to create runnable app images from source code using buildpacks.

$ pack build <image-name>

In the following example, an app image is created from Node.js application source code.

$ cd /path/to/node/app
$ pack build my-app:my-tag

# ... Detect, analyze and build output

Successfully built 2452b4b1fce1
Successfully tagged my-app:my-tag

In this case, the default builder is used, and an appropriate buildpack is automatically selected from the builder based on the app source code. To understand more about what builders are and how to create or use them, see the Working with builders using create-builder section.

To publish the produced image to an image registry, include the --publish flag:

$ pack build private-registry.example.com/my-app:my-tag --publish

In the following example, an app image is created from Node.js application source code, using a buildpack chosen by the user.

$ cd /path/to/node/app
$ pack build my-app:my-tag --buildpack path/to/some/buildpack

# ...
*** DETECTING WITH MANUALLY-PROVIDED GROUP:
2018/10/29 18:31:05 Group: Name Of Some Buildpack: pass
# ...

Successfully built 2452b4b1fce1
Successfully tagged my-app:my-tag

The message DETECTING WITH MANUALLY-PROVIDED GROUP indicates that the buildpack was chosen by the user, rather than by the automated detection process.

The --buildpack parameter can be

• a path to a directory
• a path to a .tgz file
• a URL to a .tgz file, or
• the ID of a buildpack located in a builder

To create an app image, build executes one or more buildpacks against the app's source code. Each buildpack inspects the source code and provides relevant dependencies. An image is then generated from the app's source code and these dependencies.

Buildpacks are compatible with one or more stacks. A stack designates a build image and a run image. During the build process, a stack's build image becomes the environment in which buildpacks are executed, and its run image becomes the base for the final app image. For more information on working with stacks, see the Managing stacks section.

Buildpacks can be bundled together with a specific stack's build image, resulting in a builder image (note the "er" ending). Builders provide the most convenient way to distribute buildpacks for a given stack. For more information on working with builders, see the Working with builders using create-builder section.

The pack rebase command allows app developers to rapidly update an app image when its stack's run image has changed. By using image layer rebasing, this command avoids the need to fully rebuild the app.

$ pack rebase <image-name>

Consider an app image my-app:my-tag that was originally built using the default builder. That builder's stack has a run image called pack/run. Running the following will update the base of my-app:my-tag with the latest version of pack/run.

$ pack rebase my-app:my-tag

Like build, rebase has a --publish flag that can be used to publish the updated app image to a registry.

At its core, image rebasing is a simple process. By inspecting an app image, rebase can determine whether or not a newer version of the app's base image exists (either locally or in a registry). If so, rebase updates the app image's layer metadata to reference the newer base image version.

pack create-builder enables buildpack authors and platform operators to bundle a collection of buildpacks into a single image for distribution and use with a specified stack.

$ pack create-builder <image-name> --builder-config <path-to-builder-toml>

In this example, a builder image is created from buildpacks org.example.buildpack-1 and org.example.buildpack-2. A builder.toml file provides necessary configuration to the command.

[[buildpacks]]
  id = "org.example.buildpack-1"
  uri = "relative/path/to/buildpack-1" # URIs without schemes are read as paths relative to builder.toml

[[buildpacks]]
  id = "org.example.buildpack-2"
  uri = "https://example.org/buildpacks/buildpack-2.tgz"

[[groups]]
  [[groups.buildpacks]]
    id = "org.example.buildpack-1"
    version = "0.0.1"
  
  [[groups.buildpacks]]
    id = "org.example.buildpack-2"
    version = "0.0.1"

Running create-builder while supplying this configuration file will produce the builder image.

$ pack create-builder my-builder:my-tag --builder-config path/to/builder.toml

2018/10/29 15:35:47 Pulling builder base image packs/build
2018/10/29 15:36:06 Successfully created builder image: my-builder:my-tag

Like build, create-builder has a --publish flag that can be used to publish the generated builder image to a registry.

The above example uses the default stack, whose build image is packs/build. The --stack parameter can be used to specify a different stack (currently, the only built-in stack is io.buildpacks.stacks.bionic). For more information about managing stacks and their associations with build and run images, see the Managing stacks section.

The builder can then be used in build by running:

$ pack build my-app:my-tag --builder my-builder:my-tag --buildpack org.example.buildpack-1

A builder is an image containing a collection of buildpacks that will be executed, in the order that they appear in builder.toml, against app source code. A buildpack's primary role is to inspect the source code, determine any dependencies that will be required to compile and/or run the app, and provide those dependencies as layers in the resulting image. This image's base will be the build image associated with a given stack.

It's important to note that the buildpacks in a builder are not actually executed until build is run.

As mentioned previously, a stack is associated with a build image and a run image. Stacks in pack's configuration can be managed using the following commands:

$ pack add-stack <stack-name> --build-image <build-image-name> --run-image <run-image-name1,run-image-name2,...>

$ pack update-stack <stack-name> --build-image <build-image-name> --run-image <run-image-name1,run-image-name2,...>

$ pack delete-stack <stack-name>

$ pack set-default-stack <stack-name>

Technically, a stack can be associated with multiple run images, as a variant is needed for each registry to which an app image might be published when using --publish.

In this example, a new stack called org.example.my-stack is added and associated with build image my-stack/build and run image my-stack/run.

$ pack add-stack org.example.my-stack --build-image my-stack/build --run-image my-stack/run

In this example, an existing stack called org.example.my-stack is updated with a new build image my-stack/build:v2 and a new run image my-stack/run:v2.

$ pack add-stack org.example.my-stack --build-image my-stack/build:v2 --run-image my-stack/run:v2

In this example, the existing stack org.example.my-stack is deleted from pack's configuration.

$ pack delete-stack org.example.my-stack

In this example, the default stack, used by create-builder, is set to org.example.my-stack.

$ pack set-default-stack org.example.my-stack

To inspect available stacks and their names (denoted by id), run:

$ cat ~/.pack/config.toml

...

[[stacks]]
  id = "io.buildpacks.stacks.bionic"
  build-images = ["packs/build"]
  run-images = ["packs/run"]

[[stacks]]
  id = "org.example.my-stack"
  build-images = ["my-stack/build"]
  run-images = ["my-stack/run"]

...

Note that this method of inspecting available stacks will soon be replaced by a new command. The format of config.toml is subject to change at any time.

• Buildpack & Platform Specifications

To run the tests, simply run:

$ go test