hatch-pycontainer

hatch-pycontainer

A Hatch plugin that integrates pycontainer-build to build OCI container images directly from your Hatch projects — no Docker required.

Features

• 🐍 Native Hatch Integration - Build containers during hatch build
• 🚫 No Docker Required - Pure Python OCI image generation
• ⚡ Fast Builds - Efficient layer caching and reuse
• 🔧 Configuration via pyproject.toml - Use [tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer] section
• 📦 Automatic Dependency Packaging - Includes project dependencies
• 🔒 SBOM Generation - Built-in security compliance

Installation

pip install hatch-pycontainer

Quick Start

Basic Usage

Add the plugin to your pyproject.toml:

[build-system]
requires = ["hatchling", "hatch-pycontainer"]
build-backend = "hatchling.build"

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
enable = true

Then build your container:

hatch build

This will:

1. Build your Python package (wheel)
2. Create a container image with pycontainer-build
3. Output to dist/image/

Configuration

Basic Configuration

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
# Container image tag
tag = "myapp:latest"

# Base container image
base-image = "python:3.11-slim"

# Include dependencies
include-deps = true

Complete Configuration

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
# Enable/disable the hook
enable = true

# Skip container build (useful for local dev)
skip = false

# Container image tag
tag = "myapp:v1.0.0"

# Base container image
base-image = "python:3.11-slim"

# Container registry URL
registry = "ghcr.io/user/myapp"

# Push to registry after build
push = false

# Include project dependencies
include-deps = true

# Generate SBOM (spdx or cyclonedx)
sbom = "spdx"

# Enable verbose output
verbose = true

# Disable layer caching
no-cache = false

# Environment variables
[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer.env]
ENV = "production"
PORT = "8080"
DEBUG = "false"

# Container labels
[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer.labels]
maintainer = "[email protected]"
org.opencontainers.image.source = "https://github.com/user/repo"

Usage Examples

Build Container with Package

# Build both wheel and container
hatch build

# The container image will be at dist/image/

Build and Push

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
tag = "ghcr.io/myorg/myapp:latest"
push = true

# Build and push in one command
GITHUB_TOKEN=$GITHUB_TOKEN hatch build

Development vs Production

Use environment-specific configuration:

[tool.hatch.envs.default.build.hooks.pycontainer]
tag = "myapp:dev"
base-image = "python:3.11"
push = false

[tool.hatch.envs.production.build.hooks.pycontainer]
tag = "myapp:latest"
base-image = "python:3.11-slim"
push = true
sbom = "spdx"

Skip Container Build

# Skip container build for local dev
hatch build -e local

# Or set in pyproject.toml
[tool.hatch.envs.local.build.hooks.pycontainer]
skip = true

Integration Examples

With GitHub Actions

name: Build and Release

on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      packages: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.11'
      
      - name: Install Hatch
        run: pip install hatch hatch-pycontainer
      
      - name: Build package and container
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        run: hatch build

With Azure Developer CLI

# azure.yaml
name: myapp

services:
  api:
    project: ./
    language: python
    host: containerapp
    hooks:
      prebuild:
        shell: sh
        run: pip install hatch hatch-pycontainer
      build:
        shell: sh
        run: hatch build

With CI/CD Pipeline

# .gitlab-ci.yml
build:
  image: python:3.11
  script:
    - pip install hatch hatch-pycontainer
    - hatch build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dist/

How It Works

1. Registers Build Hook - Hatch calls the pycontainer hook during build
2. Reads Configuration - Extracts settings from pyproject.toml
3. Builds Container - Uses pycontainer-build to create OCI image
4. Adds Metadata - Automatically adds version and build info
5. Pushes (Optional) - Pushes to registry if configured

Advanced Usage

Custom Build Targets

[tool.hatch.build.targets.wheel.hooks.pycontainer]
tag = "myapp:wheel-build"

[tool.hatch.build.targets.sdist.hooks.pycontainer]
skip = true  # Don't build container for sdist

Multi-Architecture

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
platform = "linux/amd64"

# Note: Full multi-arch builds coming in future release

Framework Auto-Detection

pycontainer-build automatically detects:

• FastAPI - Configures uvicorn entrypoint
• Flask - Sets up Flask server
• Django - Configures Django runserver

Custom Base Images

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
# Minimal distroless image
base-image = "gcr.io/distroless/python3-debian12"

# Alpine for small size
base-image = "python:3.11-alpine"

# Microsoft Azure-optimized
base-image = "mcr.microsoft.com/python/distroless"

Environment Variables

Set these during build for authentication:

# GitHub Container Registry
GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_... hatch build

# Docker Hub
REGISTRY_USERNAME=myuser REGISTRY_PASSWORD=mypass hatch build

# Azure Container Registry (uses az cli)
az acr login --name myregistry
hatch build

Troubleshooting

Hook Not Running

Ensure the hook is enabled:

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
enable = true
skip = false

pycontainer-build Not Found

Install it explicitly:

pip install pycontainer-build

Or add to build requirements:

[build-system]
requires = ["hatchling", "hatch-pycontainer", "pycontainer-build"]

Dependencies Not Included

Check configuration:

[tool.hatch.build.hooks.pycontainer]
include-deps = true

Push Fails

Verify authentication:

# For GHCR
echo $GITHUB_TOKEN | docker login ghcr.io -u USERNAME --password-stdin

# For ACR
az acr login --name myregistry

Comparison with Other Tools

Feature	hatch-pycontainer	Dockerfile	Buildpacks
No Docker daemon	✅	❌	❌
Pure Python	✅	❌	❌
Hatch native	✅	❌	❌
Auto-config	✅	❌	✅
Layer caching	✅	✅	✅
SBOM generation	✅	❌	✅

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Hatch 1.18.0+
• pycontainer-build (installed automatically)

License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Related Projects

• pycontainer-build - Core container builder
• poetry-pycontainer - Poetry plugin
• Hatch - Modern Python project manager

Support

• GitHub Issues
• Documentation