Delete image tag from Github Container Registry

[pluma]

I’m using the new GHCR and generating docker images for pull requests so I can deploy to a staging environment per-PR. This works great using GitHub actions but I can’t find a way to delete the generated image tags when a PR is merged.

Based on the Docker Registry API spec it looks like I would need to fetch the manifest digest for the given tag and then delete the manifest. But trying to do this via the GHCR API gives me UNSUPPORTED.

The GHCR doc*mentation only describes the process of manually deleting an image and indicates that it may be added to the GraphQL API in the future.

Is there currently a way to delete image tags via code? If not, is this going to be part of the GA release?

EDIT: I had to censor the word “doc*mentation” because the word filter complained that my post has the word “c*m” in it. I guess someone wasn’t aware of the Sc*nthorpe problem (yeah, that triggers it too).

[pluma]

I think the correct solution for the moment is to use the GitHub REST API and delete the container type package with the container name. I haven’t tried this yet, but it works for the older docker type containers (although unintuitively the API doesn’t use the repo name as apparently that’s not actually part of the package name).

[airtower-luna]

The API for that was added very recently:

The GitHub Blog

Packages: delete and restore for all packages - GitHub Changelog

Packages: delete and restore for all packages

I’ve tried the API with a script to clean up old untagged versions, maybe you can get some inspiration from there:

github.com

airtower-luna/hello-ghcr/blob/e17ebc574711f4bcf85f8bd6b2380e226901778d/ghcr-prune.py

#!/usr/bin/python3
# PYTHON_ARGCOMPLETE_OK
import argparse
import dateutil.parser
import getpass
import os
import requests
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
author = "Fiona Klute"

version = "0.1"

copyright = "Copyright (C) 2021 Fiona Klute"

license = "MIT"
GitHub API documentation: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/packages
github_api_accept = 'application/vnd.github.v3+json'
if name == "main":

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(

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[matifali]

How can I only delete a specific tag of the image and not the image?

[rafalkk]

I also had this problem. You can try my custom action:
https://github.com/rafalkk/remove-dockertag-action

[pluma]

That explains why I didn’t find it when I first checked. Looks like it’s still not possible to do this via the Docker (ghcr.io) API though. At least with the rest API I can do this alongside the other post-PR cleanup stuff.

[mr-linch]

If you need delete images by tag you can checkout our action

github.com

bots-house/ghcr-delete-image-action

♻️ Delete GitHub Container Registry image by tag. Contribute to bots-house/ghcr-delete-image-action development by creating an account on GitHub.

[saheerb]

I can delete the image using the APIs, is there anyway to just delete the tag?

[TonyRL]

  <a href="https://github.com/marketplace/actions/ghcr-pruning" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow ugc">GitHub</a>

GHCR Pruning - GitHub Marketplace

GitHub Action to prune/delete container versions from GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io)

This action supports removing images by tags and also untagged images.

[Yikun]

Looks like ghcr didn’t support delete the tag by api?

I also take a look on above actions, it seems the “remove image by tag action” not only cleanup the tag, but also clean the package version. That means if a package version with multi-tags will also be removed.

[felfert]

Just stumbled over this::

This lists the names of containers like reponame/tagname (Note the slash)
In order to make the DELETE work, you have to URL-encode the name. E.g. replace the slash with %2f
Otherwise, you get a 404 not found

[neilime]

Just stumbled over this::

This lists the names of containers like reponame/tagname (Note the slash) In order to make the DELETE work, you have to URL-encode the name. E.g. replace the slash with %2f Otherwise, you get a 404 not found

@felfert do you mean you are able to delete tag with this kind of request?

DELETE https://api.github.com/user/packages/container/test-repo%2Fapplication/0.5.0

I've tried to do same with an organization but have a 404

DELETE https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo%2Fapplication/0.5.0

[felfert]

No. Not the slash between the repo and the name. The slash IN the name (which separes the base name from the tag name)
In your example this would be:

DELETE https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo/application%2f0.5.0

[neilime]

It does not work:

Getting package info need to url encode repo name:

• https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo%2Fapplication: 200

  {
   "id": 0000000,
   "name": "test-repo/application",
   "package_type": "container",
  }

Without encoded name issuing a 404:

• https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo/application: 404

Unable to retrieve specific tag for a given package (with and without url encoding):

• https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo%2Fapplication/0.5.0 : 404
• https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo%2Fapplication%2F0.5.0 : 404
• https://api.github.com/orgs/test-org/packages/container/test-repo/application%2F0.5.0 : 404

[rafalkk]

You can try my custom action:
https://github.com/rafalkk/remove-dockertag-action