instruction: Explain how to ci | docker docs
output: Back Ask AI Start typing to search or try Ask AI . Contact support Manuals Get started Guides Reference Continuous integration with Docker Page options Copy page as Markdown for LLMs View page as plain text Ask questions with Docs AI Claude Open in Claude Table of contents Continuous Integration (CI) is the part of the development process where you're looking to get your code changes merged with the main branch of the project. At this point, development teams run tests and builds to vet that the code changes don't cause any unwanted or unexpected behaviors. There are several uses for Docker at this stage of development, even if you don't end up packaging your application as a container image. Docker as a build environment Containers are reproducible, isolated environments that yield predictable results. Building and testing your application in a Docker container makes it easier to prevent unexpected behaviors from occurring. Using a Dockerfile, you define the exact requirements for the build environment, including programming runtimes, operating system, binaries, and more. Using Docker to manage your build environment also eases maintenance. For example, updating to a new version of a programming runtime can be as simple as changing a tag or digest in a Dockerfile. No need to SSH into a pet VM to manually reinstall a newer version and update the related configuration files. Additionally, just as you expect third-party open source packages to be secure, the same should go for your build environment. You can scan and index a builder image, just like you would for any other containerized application. The following links provide instructions for how you can get started using Docker for building your applications in CI: GitHub Actions GitLab Circle CI Render Docker in Docker You can also use a Dockerized build environment to build container images using Docker. That is, your build environment runs inside a container which itself is equipped to run Docker builds. This method is referred to as "Docker in Docker". Docker provides an official Docker image that you can use for this purpose. What's next Docker maintains a set of official GitHub Actions that you can use to build, annotate, and push container images on the GitHub Actions platform. See Introduction to GitHub Actions to learn more and get started.