Dexfile

Inspiration

What to Automatically detect programming language of a project and take appropriate actions to build an image? Copying Dockerfile instructions from one project to other? Having duplicate Dockerfiles and it's instructions over several repos? Dexfile is a go-to solution for every your problem

What it does

• Simple Click and Deploy for PaaS platforms to deploy any Project.
• Complexity of Build Scripts and CI Configuration: replace them with Dexfile
• Vendor Lock-in with CI/CD Platforms: avoid vendor lock-in by using Dexfile with docker buildx build.
• Test and Deploy: test code before deployment to ensure the code works properly.
• Reduced Costs and maintainance burden: Only build what has changed increasing buildtimes directly resulting in reduced CI/CD costs. Also less maintenance because by seperation of responsibilities on development and deployment, their by maximize production success rate.

How we built it

• a buildkit frontend that works alongside existing Dockerfiles with every Dockerfile supported tools including docker cli: docker buildx and docker bake

Challenges we ran into

• a lot, delving deep into codebases to build an optimised product to simplify complexities in existing DevOps tools of like-kind

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• making imports of Dockerfiles/Dexfiles buildkit frontend agnostic.
• supporting different versions of external frontend images.
• building ephemeral containers for advanced use cases that no other frontends currently in market supports!
• modularity, reusability, reproducibility of image and instructions.

What we learned

• how buildkit frontends work
• how Dockerfile works
• limitations of Buildkit frontends

What's next for Dexfile

• split the code into multiple repos and decouple it
• create a new project from newly created repo build another product that surpasses the current limitations in gateway client by leveraging llb client to further simplify DevOps lifecycle

Built With

• buildkit
• golang