Docker Skills for AI Coding Agents

Docker-authored knowledge skills that improve AI coding agent output for Docker-related tasks. Skills are authored once as portable SKILL.md directories and discovered automatically by any compliant agent through standard skill paths.

Skills are grouped by the Docker product they cover. The table is generated from catalog.yaml by task catalog; edit the catalog, not the table.

Each skill triggers directly from its own description; there is no entry-point skill to load first. When a task spans several skills, load them in the order their outputs feed each other: docker-project-foundations before docker-build-strategies or docker-compose-patterns when the project has no Docker setup yet; docker-build-strategies before docker-compose-patterns when both a Dockerfile and a compose.yaml change; docker-sandboxes-lifecycle before docker-sandboxes-network-credentials, and both before docker-sandboxes-env or docker-sandboxes-kits; docker-agent-config before docker-agent-run before docker-agent-deploy. Skills marked experimental cover features whose schemas may still change.

The skills CLI installs into every major coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Windsurf, Cline, Kiro, and more). It reads the skills.sh.json index in this repo, so skills are listed grouped by product:

npx skills add docker/skills

The command prompts for which skills and which agents to install to. Non-interactive variants:

# Browse the catalog without installing anything
npx skills add docker/skills --list

# Install one skill, no prompts (project scope; add -g for user scope)
npx skills add docker/skills --skill docker-compose-patterns --yes

# Install every skill into one agent
npx skills add docker/skills --skill '*' --agent codex --yes

# Install every skill into every detected agent
npx skills add docker/skills --all

# Keep installed skills current
npx skills update

Plugin installs are managed by each agent's marketplace, so updates arrive through the agent rather than through npx skills update.

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add docker/skills
/plugin install docker-skills@docker

See Claude Code plugins docs

OpenAI Codex

codex plugin marketplace add docker/skills
codex plugin add docker-skills@docker

Start a new Codex session after installing. See Codex skills docs

GitHub Copilot CLI

/plugin marketplace add docker/skills
/plugin install docker-skills@docker

See Copilot CLI plugins docs

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install https://github.com/docker/skills

See Gemini CLI extensions docs

Cursor

Add docker/skills as a marketplace from Cursor's plugin settings (Customize → Plugins → import from repository), or use the skills CLI above with --agent cursor. See Cursor plugins docs

Clone the repo and point your agent at the skills/ directory, or copy the skill folders you want into the agent's skill directory. The repo already contains symlinks for the common discovery paths, so cloning it into a project root is enough for the agents below to pick the skills up.

git clone https://github.com/docker/skills.git

main is the rolling development channel and continuously publishes the mutable docker/skills-content:edge image. Tags such as v0.1.0 are immutable, pinned distribution snapshots whose version matches the top-level version in catalog.yaml.

Maintainers create versioned releases with the manually dispatched Release workflow after changes merge to main. The workflow builds the multi-architecture docker/skills-content:vX.Y.Z image and creates a draft GitHub release containing catalog.yaml, skills.sh.json, and the image digest. A maintainer inspects and publishes that draft; the workflow never publishes it automatically. Pin a consumer to the release tag, or pin the image by its published digest when byte-for-byte immutability is required.

Prerequisites: Task and Docker.

task             # Run the complete CI/release validation suite
task validate    # Check skill structure, frontmatter, and manifests; run validator tests
task eval        # Static asset and verification-snippet checks, not live agent evals
task links       # Check local Markdown links and heading anchors
task catalog     # Regenerate catalog tables, skills.sh.json, and plugin manifest versions from catalog.yaml

skills/               — Canonical skill directories (SKILL.md + supporting files)
.agents/skills        — Symlink to skills/ (Codex, cross-agent convention)
.claude/skills        — Symlink to skills/ (Claude Code)
.gemini/skills        — Symlink to skills/ (Gemini CLI)
.github/skills        — Symlink to skills/ (Copilot CLI)
catalog.yaml          — Distribution version and skill registry: product families, skill ids, per-skill versions, and status
skills.sh.json        — Product-grouped index read by the skills CLI (generated from catalog.yaml)
scripts/render_catalog.py — Renders catalog tables, skills.sh.json, and plugin manifest versions from catalog.yaml
evals/                — Evaluation runbooks
.claude-plugin/       — Claude Code plugin + marketplace manifests
.codex-plugin/        — Codex plugin manifest
.agents/plugins/      — Codex marketplace manifest
.cursor-plugin/       — Cursor plugin + marketplace manifests
.github/plugin/       — Copilot CLI plugin + marketplace manifests
gemini-extension.json — Gemini CLI extension manifest
Taskfile.yml          — CI and validation tasks
scripts/ci.sh         — Shared CI and release validation entrypoint

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.