# Buildah

> Buildah is an Apache-2.0 command line tool for building OCI-compliant container images
> without a container runtime daemon and without root privileges. It is part of the CNCF
> Podman Container Tools project. Buildah has no hosted API, no SaaS surface and no
> accounts: the CLI and the Go library `go.podman.io/buildah` are the entire interface.

Important for agents: there is nothing here to call over HTTP. Buildah runs locally. An
agent works with Buildah by executing `buildah` subcommands on a Linux host, or by
importing the Go module. Anything that claims to be a hosted Buildah API is not from this
project.

Latest release: v1.45.0 (2026-07-30).
Source of truth: https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah — note the project moved
out of the `containers` GitHub organization in 2026; `github.com/containers/buildah`
redirects and the Go module path is now `go.podman.io/buildah`.

## Start here

- [Project site](https://buildah.io): announcements and release news.
- [Introduction tutorial](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/docs/tutorials/01-intro.md): building an image from scratch and from a Containerfile.
- [Install guide](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/install.md): dnf, apt, pacman, zypper, emerge, or build from source.
- [Tutorials](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/tree/main/docs/tutorials): registries and repositories, ONBUILD, embedding in a build tool, rootless builds on OpenShift.

## Command reference

- [buildah(1)](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/docs/buildah.1.md): global flags and the full command table.
- [All man pages](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/tree/main/docs): one markdown man page per command.

Core commands: `build` (build from a Containerfile or Dockerfile), `from` (create a working
container), `run` (run a command inside it), `copy` / `add` (put files in it), `config`
(set image configuration), `commit` (turn it into an image), `push` / `pull` (move images
to and from OCI registries), `login` / `logout` (registry credentials), `manifest` (multi
architecture image indexes), `source` (source images and artifacts), `mount` / `umount`,
`images`, `containers`, `inspect`, `tag`, `rename`, `rm`, `rmi`, `prune`, `mkcw`,
`unshare`, `info`, `version`.

## Standards

Buildah's default output format is OCI image-spec v1.0. It reads and writes the OCI image
layout, pushes and pulls against OCI Distribution Spec registries, builds OCI image
indexes, and delegates `RUN` to an OCI runtime. Docker manifest v2s2/v2s1 output is
available with `--format docker`. Detail: `conformance/buildah-conformance.yml` in this
profile.

## Project and governance

- [Roadmap](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/ROADMAP.md): reviewed quarterly with the Podman team.
- [Governance](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md) and [Maintainers](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/MAINTAINERS.md).
- [AI/LLM development policy](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/LLM_POLICY.md): governs AI-assisted contributions to the project.
- [Changelog](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) and [release announcements](https://buildah.io/releases).
- [Contributing](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md), [Code of conduct](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/CODE-OF-CONDUCT.md).
- [Troubleshooting](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/troubleshooting.md).

## Security

Report vulnerabilities privately to security@lists.podman.io. Do not open a public issue.
Maintainers acknowledge within 3 working days.
[Policy](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/blob/main/SECURITY.md) ·
[Shared Containers policy](https://github.com/containers/common/blob/main/SECURITY.md)

## Support

- [Issue tracker](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/issues)
- [Mailing list](https://buildah.io/mailinglist)

## Optional

- [Go package reference](https://pkg.go.dev/go.podman.io/buildah)
- [Examples](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/tree/main/examples) and [demos](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/buildah/tree/main/demos)
- [Podman](https://podman.io) and [Skopeo](https://github.com/podman-container-tools/skopeo), the sibling tools that share Buildah's image and storage libraries.

---
generated: 2026-09-13
method: generated
source: >-
  apis.yml plus this repository's artifacts; buildah.io/llms.txt returned 404 on
  2026-09-13, so no provider-published llms.txt exists to save verbatim.