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Overview

What is Dalec?​

Dalec is a Docker Buildkit frontend that translates declarative YAML specifications into build instructions. Think of it as a specialized compiler that takes your package configuration and produces packages and containers across multiple Linux distributions and Windows.

Why Use Dalec?​

  • Unified Build Process: Write once, build for multiple targets (Debian, Ubuntu, Azure Linux, Rocky Linux, etc.)
  • Supply Chain Security: Built-in support for SBOMs, provenance attestations, and package signing
  • Docker-Native: Leverages Docker Buildkit's caching, parallelization, and security features
  • Cross-Platform: Build packages for different architectures and operating systems

Features​

  • 🐳 No additional tools needed except Docker
  • 🚀 Easy to use declarative configuration
  • 📦 Build packages and/or containers for multiple targets
    • DEB-based: Debian and Ubuntu
    • RPM-based: Azure Linux, Rocky Linux, and Alma Linux
    • Windows containers (cross compilation only)
  • 🔌 Pluggable support for other operating systems
  • 🤏 Minimal image size, resulting in fewer vulnerabilities and smaller attack surface
  • 🪟 Support for Windows containers
  • ✍️ Support for signed packages
  • 🔐 Supply chain security with build-time SBOMs and provenance attestations

Getting Started​

To start building with Dalec, you'll need Docker installed.

👉 Ready to build? See the Quickstart guide!

Build Types​

Building from Source​

Dalec can build packages and containers from source code repositories by specifying the source repository and build steps in the Dalec spec. The source code is checked out, built, and the resulting artifacts are included in the package.

For more information, see Quick Start.

Virtual Packages​

Create "virtual" packages that reference other packages but don't install files themselves. This is useful for creating packages that are collections of dependencies.

For more information, see Virtual Packages.

Dalec Specification​

The Dalec spec is a YAML file that describes:

  • Package metadata (name, version, license, etc.)
  • Build and runtime dependencies
  • Source repositories and build steps
  • Files to include in the package
  • Container image customizations

For complete details, see the Dalec Specification.