Artifact Management

Overview

Implement comprehensive artifact management strategies for storing, versioning, and distributing built binaries, Docker images, and packages across environments.

When to Use

• Docker image registry management
• Package publication and versioning
• Build artifact storage and retrieval
• Container image optimization
• Artifact retention policies
• Multi-registry distribution
• Dependency caching

Implementation Examples

1. Docker Registry Configuration

# Dockerfile with multi-stage build for optimization
FROM node:18-alpine AS dependencies
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

FROM node:18-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:18-alpine AS runtime
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=dependencies /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
COPY package*.json ./

EXPOSE 3000
HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=3s --start-period=40s --retries=3 \
  CMD node healthcheck.js

CMD ["node", "dist/server.js"]

LABEL org.opencontainers.image.version="1.0.0" \
      org.opencontainers.image.description="Production application" \
      org.opencontainers.image.authors="DevOps Team"

2. GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) Push

# .github/workflows/publish-image.yml
name: Publish to GHCR

on:
  push:
    tags: ['v*']
    branches: [main]

env:
  REGISTRY: ghcr.io
  IMAGE_NAME: ${{ github.repository }}

jobs:
  publish:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Set up Docker Buildx
        uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v2

      - name: Log in to registry
        uses: docker/login-action@v2
        with:
          registry: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}
          username: ${{ github.actor }}
          password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      - name: Extract metadata
        id: meta
        uses: docker/metadata-action@v4
        with:
          images: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}
          tags: |
            type=ref,event=branch
            type=semver,pattern={{version}}
            type=semver,pattern={{major}}.{{minor}}
            type=sha

      - name: Build and push
        uses: docker/build-push-action@v4
        with:
          context: .
          file: ./Dockerfile.prod
          push: true
          tags: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.tags }}
          labels: ${{ steps.meta.outputs.labels }}
          cache-from: type=registry,ref=${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}:buildcache
          cache-to: type=registry,ref=${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}:buildcache,mode=max

3. npm Package Publishing

{
  "name": "@myorg/awesome-library",
  "version": "1.2.3",
  "description": "Awesome library for developers",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "types": "dist/index.d.ts",
  "files": [
    "dist",
    "README.md",
    "LICENSE"
  ],
  "publishConfig": {
    "registry": "https://npm.pkg.github.com",
    "access": "public"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/myorg/awesome-library.git"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run build && npm run test",
    "prepack": "npm run build"
  }
}

4. Artifact Retention Policy

# .github/workflows/cleanup-artifacts.yml
name: Cleanup Old Artifacts

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 2 * * *'  # Daily at 2 AM
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  cleanup:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Delete artifacts older than 30 days
        uses: geekyeggo/delete-artifact@v2
        with:
          name: '*'
          minCreatedTime: 30d
          failOnError: false

5. Artifact Versioning

#!/bin/bash
# artifact-version.sh

BUILD_DATE=$(date -u +'%Y%m%d')
GIT_HASH=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
VERSION=$(grep '"version"' package.json | sed 's/.*"version": "\([^"]*\)".*/\1/')

# Full version tag
FULL_VERSION="${VERSION}-${BUILD_DATE}.${GIT_HASH}"

# Create artifact with version
docker build -t myapp:${FULL_VERSION} .
docker tag myapp:${FULL_VERSION} myapp:latest

echo "Built artifact version: ${FULL_VERSION}"

10. GitLab Package Registry

# .gitlab-ci.yml
publish-package:
  stage: publish
  script:
    - npm config set @myorg:registry https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/packages/npm/
    - npm config set '//gitlab.example.com/api/v4/packages/npm/:_authToken' "${CI_JOB_TOKEN}"
    - npm publish
  only:
    - tags

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Use semantic versioning for artifacts
• Implement image scanning before deployment
• Set retention policies for old artifacts
• Use multi-stage builds for Docker images
• Sign and verify artifacts
• Implement artifact immutability
• Document artifact metadata
• Use specific base image versions
• Implement vulnerability scanning
• Cache layers aggressively
• Tag images with commit SHA
• Compress artifacts for storage

❌ DON'T

• Use

  latest

  tag as sole identifier
• Store secrets in artifacts
• Push artifacts without scanning
• Use untrusted base images
• Skip artifact verification
• Overwrite published artifacts
• Mix binary and source artifacts
• Ignore image layer optimization
• Store build logs with sensitive data

Artifact Storage Standards

# Naming convention
{registry}/{org}/{repo}/{service}:{version}-{build}-{commit}

# Examples
docker.io/myorg/web-app:1.2.3-123-abc1234
ghcr.io/myorg/api-service:2.0.0-456-def5678
artifactory.example.com/releases/core:3.1.0-789-ghi9012

Resources

• Docker Registry API
• npm Registry
• GitHub Artifact Management
• Artifactory Documentation