Skip to content

container-layer v0.2.2

Choose a tag to compare

View all tags
@github-actions github-actions released this 17 May 20:05
· 238 commits to main since this release
container-layer-v0.2.2
bad5812
This commit was created on GitHub.com and signed with GitHub’s verified signature.
GPG key ID: B5690EEEBB952194
Verified
Learn about vigilant mode.

container-layer

Custom, cached environment overlays for Claude's ephemeral containers.

What This Does

Claude.ai and Claude Code on the Web run in ephemeral containers — every session starts from a blank slate. This skill lets you declare your environment in a Containerfile (a Dockerfile subset), build it once, cache the result as a tarball in GitHub Releases, and restore it in seconds on subsequent sessions.

First session: parse Containerfile → execute instructions → snapshot filesystem delta → push ~3 MB tarball to GitHub Releases.

Every session after: download tarball → extract → done. One fetch replaces N installs.

Components

File Purpose
SKILL.md Skill metadata and documentation
Containerfile Default environment spec (edit this)
boot.sh Boot script for Claude.ai project instructions
boot-ccotw.sh Boot script for Claude Code (SessionStart hook)
scripts/containerfile.py Parser + executor with baseline diffing
scripts/layer_cache.py GitHub Releases tarball cache
scripts/cli.py CLI: build, restore, hash, inspect
scripts/uv_shim.sh Captures ad-hoc uv pip install to Containerfile

Supported Instructions

FETCH github:user/repo /dest          # GitHub repo tarball
FETCH github:user/repo@ref /dest      # Specific ref
RUN uv pip install --system pandas     # Shell commands
ENV KEY=value                          # Environment variables  
WORKDIR /path                          # Working directory
SNAPSHOT /path                         # Include in cached layer

FROM, EXPOSE, CMD, ENTRYPOINT, etc. are silently ignored (Dockerfile compatibility).

Smart Snapshotting

The executor captures a filesystem baseline before building, then diffs against it — only new files from pip install / uv pip install are included in the tarball, not the entire dist-packages directory. FETCH destinations are captured in full. This keeps tarballs small (~3 MB for a full skills repo + Python packages).

Cache Invalidation

The cache key is a SHA-256 of the Containerfile contents. Pass --invalidate-on user/repo to include a GitHub repo's HEAD SHA in the key — when that repo gets a new commit, the cache auto-invalidates and triggers a rebuild.

python3 -m scripts.cli --invalidate-on oaustegard/claude-skills restore ./Containerfile

Ad-Hoc Install Capture

Source the uv shim to automatically append new installs to your Containerfile:

source ./scripts/uv_shim.sh ./Containerfile
uv pip install --system pandas    # installs AND appends RUN line

Test Repo

See container-layer-test for a working example with Claude Code on the Web SessionStart hooks.

Skill folder: container-layer

Release of container-layer version 0.2.2

📥 Download & Install

⬇️ Download container-layer.zip

To install:

  1. Click the download link above (ignore the "Source code" archives below - they're auto-generated by GitHub)
  2. Go to Claude.ai Skills Settings
  3. Upload the downloaded ZIP file
  4. Requires paid Claude Pro or Team account

See official documentation for more details.

Recent Changes

bad5812 container-layer v0.2.2: baseline /usr/{bin,lib,share} for apt-install layers (#653)
80cdd95 docs: Update CHANGELOG.md for released skills
Assets 3
Loading