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Swarm it. Build it. Run it. — Managing container base and library images has never been easier.

ContainerHive turns a directory of Dockerfiles into a dependency-aware build: it works out the build order, builds with BuildKit, runs your tests, generates SBOMs and writes the CI pipeline.

images/
├── base/      # Dockerfile: FROM ubuntu:24.04
└── node/      # Dockerfile: FROM __hive__/base:1.0.0

ch generate && ch build && ch test

• New here?

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  Go from an empty directory to a first tested build in a few minutes. Not sure ContainerHive fits your use case? Read why it exists first.

  Get started

  Why ContainerHive?

• Already using it?

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  Look up commands and flags, hive.yml and image.yml fields, or how to wire ContainerHive into your CI provider.

  CLI reference

  Configuration

  CI integration

Features

• Next-gen builds: Powered by BuildKit, the modern container image builder behind Docker.
• Multi-platform ready: Build and push images for any architecture in a single workflow.
• YAML-driven management: Define and maintain image sets and variants declaratively.
• Reproducible layers: Guarantee consistent, bit-for-bit identical builds every time (given the same inputs).
• Testing built in: Validate images as part of the build process, no extra tooling needed.
• Smart caching: Optimized caching via S3 or registry backends, no manual tuning required.
• SBOM generation: Generate CycloneDX SBOMs for all built images using Syft.
• CI pipeline generation: Generate GitLab CI and GitHub Actions pipelines from your project definition.
• Bring your own BuildKit: Connect to any BuildKit instance — local daemon, shared cluster service, or sidecar in a hardened Kubernetes environment.

Requirements

• BuildKit daemon (ch dev buildkitd start can run one for you)
• S3-compatible storage for caching (optional)

Prebuilt binaries are available for Linux and macOS (64-bit and ARM 64-bit), plus a Docker image. See Install ContainerHive.