A smarter Dockerfile linter that helps you build best practice Docker images. The linter parses the Dockerfile into an AST and performs rules on top of the AST. It stands on the shoulders of ShellCheck to lint the Bash code inside RUN instructions.

🌐 Check the online version on hadolint.github.io/hadolint

• How to use
• Install
• CLI
• Configure
• Non-Posix Shells
• Ignoring Rules
  • Inline ignores
  • Global ignores
• Linting Labels
  • Note on dealing with variables in labels
• Integrations
• Rules
• Develop
  • Setup
  • REPL
  • Tests
  • AST
  • Building against custom libraries
• Alternatives

You can run hadolint locally to lint your Dockerfile.

hadolint <Dockerfile>
hadolint --ignore DL3003 --ignore DL3006 <Dockerfile> # exclude specific rules
hadolint --trusted-registry my-company.com:500 <Dockerfile> # Warn when using untrusted FROM images

Docker comes to the rescue, providing an easy way how to run hadolint on most platforms. Just pipe your Dockerfile to docker run:

docker run --rm -i hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile
# OR
docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile

or using Podman:

podman run --rm -i docker.io/hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile
# OR
podman run --rm -i ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile

or using Windows PowerShell:

cat .\Dockerfile | docker run --rm -i hadolint/hadolint

You can download prebuilt binaries for OSX, Windows and Linux from the latest release page. However, if this does not work for you, please fall back to container (Docker), brew or source installation.

On OSX, you can use brew to install hadolint.

brew install hadolint

On Windows, you can use scoop to install hadolint.

scoop install hadolint

On distributions that have nix installed, you can use the hadolint package to run ad-hoc shells or permanently install hadolint into your environment.

As mentioned earlier, hadolint is available as a container image:

docker pull hadolint/hadolint
# OR
docker pull ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint

If you need a container with shell access, use the Debian or Alpine variants:

docker pull hadolint/hadolint:latest-debian
# OR
docker pull hadolint/hadolint:latest-alpine
# OR
docker pull ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint:latest-debian
# OR
docker pull ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint:latest-alpine

You can also build hadolint locally. You need Haskell and the cabal build tool to build the binary.

git clone https://github.com/hadolint/hadolint \
  && cd hadolint \
  && cabal configure \
  && cabal build \
  && cabal install

If you want the VS Code Hadolint extension to use Hadolint in a container, you can use the following wrapper script:

#!/bin/bash
dockerfile="$1"
shift
docker run --rm -i hadolint/hadolint hadolint "$@" - < "$dockerfile"

hadolint --help

hadolint - Dockerfile Linter written in Haskell

Usage: hadolint [-v|--version] [-c|--config FILENAME] [DOCKERFILE...]
                [--file-path-in-report FILEPATHINREPORT] [--no-fail]
                [--no-color] [-V|--verbose] [-f|--format ARG] [--error RULECODE]
                [--warning RULECODE] [--info RULECODE] [--style RULECODE]
                [--ignore RULECODE]
                [--trusted-registry REGISTRY (e.g. docker.io)]
                [--require-label LABELSCHEMA (e.g. maintainer:text)]
                [--strict-labels] [--disable-ignore-pragma]
                [-t|--failure-threshold THRESHOLD]
  Lint Dockerfile for errors and best practices

Available options:
  -h,--help                Show this help text
  -v,--version             Show version
  -c,--config FILENAME     Path to the configuration file
  --file-path-in-report FILEPATHINREPORT
                           The file path referenced in the generated report.
                           This only applies for the 'checkstyle' format and is
                           useful when running Hadolint with Docker to set the
                           correct file path.
  --no-fail                Don't exit with a failure status code when any rule
                           is violated
  --no-color               Don't colorize output
  -V,--verbose             Enables verbose logging of hadolint's output to
                           stderr
  -f,--format ARG          The output format for the results [tty | json |
                           checkstyle | codeclimate | gitlab_codeclimate | gnu |
                           codacy | sonarqube | sarif] (default: tty)
  --error RULECODE         Make the rule `RULECODE` have the level `error`
  --warning RULECODE       Make the rule `RULECODE` have the level `warning`
  --info RULECODE          Make the rule `RULECODE` have the level `info`
  --style RULECODE         Make the rule `RULECODE` have the level `style`
  --ignore RULECODE        A rule to ignore. If present, the ignore list in the
                           config file is ignored
  --trusted-registry REGISTRY (e.g. docker.io)
                           A docker registry to allow to appear in FROM
                           instructions
  --require-label LABELSCHEMA (e.g. maintainer:text)
                           The option --require-label=label:format makes
                           Hadolint check that the label `label` conforms to
                           format requirement `format`
  --strict-labels          Do not permit labels other than specified in
                           `label-schema`
  --disable-ignore-pragma  Disable inline ignore pragmas `# hadolint
                           ignore=DLxxxx`
  -t,--failure-threshold THRESHOLD
                           Exit with failure code only when rules with a
                           severity equal to or above THRESHOLD are violated.
                           Accepted values: [error | warning | info | style |
                           ignore | none] (default: info)

Configuration files can be used globally or per project. Hadolint looks for configuration files in the following locations or their platform specific equivalents in this order and uses the first one exclusively:

• $PWD/.hadolint.yaml
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hadolint.yaml
• $HOME/.config/hadolint.yaml
• $HOME/.hadolint/hadolint.yaml or $HOME/hadolint/config.yaml
• $HOME/.hadolint.yaml

In windows, the %LOCALAPPDATA% environment variable is used instead of XDG_CONFIG_HOME. Config files can have either yaml or yml extensions.

hadolint full yaml config file schema

failure-threshold: string               # name of threshold level (error | warning | info | style | ignore | none)
format: string                          # Output format (tty | json | checkstyle | codeclimate | gitlab_codeclimate | gnu | codacy)
ignored: [string]                       # list of rules
label-schema:                           # See Linting Labels below for specific label-schema details
  author: string                        # Your name
  contact: string                       # email address
  created: timestamp                    # rfc3339 datetime
  version: string                       # semver
  documentation: string                 # url
  git-revision: string                  # hash
  license: string                       # spdx
no-color: boolean                       # true | false
no-fail: boolean                        # true | false
override:
  error: [string]                       # list of rules
  warning: [string]                     # list of rules
  info: [string]                        # list of rules
  style: [string]                       # list of rules
strict-labels: boolean                  # true | false
disable-ignore-pragma: boolean          # true | false
trustedRegistries: string | [string]    # registry or list of registries

hadolint supports specifying the ignored rules using a configuration file. The configuration file should be in yaml format. This is one valid configuration file as an example:

ignored:
  - DL3000
  - SC1010

Additionally, hadolint can warn you when images from untrusted repositories are being used in Dockerfiles, you can append the trustedRegistries keys to the configuration file, as shown below:

ignored:
  - DL3000
  - SC1010

trustedRegistries:
  - docker.io
  - my-company.com:5000
  - "*.gcr.io"

If you want to override the severity of specific rules, you can do that too:

override:
  error:
    - DL3001
    - DL3002
  warning:
    - DL3042
    - DL3033
  info:
    - DL3032
  style:
    - DL3015

failure-threshold Exit with failure code only when rules with a severity above THRESHOLD are violated (Available in v2.6.0+)

failure-threshold: info
override:
  warning:
    - DL3042
    - DL3033
  info:
    - DL3032

Additionally, you can pass a custom configuration file in the command line with the --config option

hadolint --config /path/to/config.yaml Dockerfile

To pass a custom configuration file (using relative or absolute path) to a container, use the following command:

docker run --rm -i -v /your/path/to/hadolint.yaml:/.config/hadolint.yaml hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile
# OR
docker run --rm -i -v /your/path/to/hadolint.yaml:/.config/hadolint.yaml ghcr.io/hadolint/hadolint < Dockerfile

In addition to config files, Hadolint can be configured with environment variables.

NO_COLOR=1                               # Set or unset. See https://no-color.org
HADOLINT_NOFAIL=1                        # Truthy value e.g. 1, true or yes
HADOLINT_VERBOSE=1                       # Truthy value e.g. 1, true or yes
HADOLINT_FORMAT=json                     # Output format (tty | json | checkstyle | codeclimate | gitlab_codeclimate | gnu | codacy | sarif )
HADOLINT_FAILURE_THRESHOLD=info          # threshold level (error | warning | info | style | ignore | none)
HADOLINT_OVERRIDE_ERROR=DL3010,DL3020    # comma separated list of rule codes
HADOLINT_OVERRIDE_WARNING=DL3010,DL3020  # comma separated list of rule codes
HADOLINT_OVERRIDE_INFO=DL3010,DL3020     # comma separated list of rule codes
HADOLINT_OVERRIDE_STYLE=DL3010,DL3020    # comma separated list of rule codes
HADOLINT_IGNORE=DL3010,DL3020            # comma separated list of rule codes
HADOLINT_STRICT_LABELS=1                 # Truthy value e.g. 1, true or yes
HADOLINT_DISABLE_IGNORE_PRAGMA=1         # Truthy value e.g. 1, true or yes
HADOLINT_TRUSTED_REGISTRIES=docker.io    # comma separated list of registry urls
HADOLINT_REQUIRE_LABELS=maintainer:text  # comma separated list of label schema items

When using base images with non-posix shells as default (e.g. Windows based images) a special pragma hadolint shell can specify which shell the base image uses, so that Hadolint can automatically ignore all shell-specific rules.

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/windows/servercore:ltsc2022
# hadolint shell=powershell
RUN Get-Process notepad | Stop-Process

It is also possible to ignore rules by adding a special comment directly above the Dockerfile statement for which you want to make an exception for. Such comments look like # hadolint ignore=DL3001,SC1081. For example:

# hadolint ignore=DL3006
FROM ubuntu

# hadolint ignore=DL3003,SC1035
RUN cd /tmp && echo "hello!"

The comment "inline ignores" applies only to the statement following it.

Rules can also be ignored on a per-file basis using the global ignore pragma. It works just like inline ignores, except that it applies to the whole file instead of just the next line.

# hadolint global ignore=DL3003,DL3006,SC1035
FROM ubuntu

RUN cd /tmp && echo "foo"

Hadolint is able to check if specific labels are present and conform to a predefined label schema. First, a label schema must be defined either via the command line:

hadolint --require-label author:text --require-label version:semver Dockerfile

or via the config file:

label-schema:
  author: text
  contact: email
  created: rfc3339
  version: semver
  documentation: url
  git-revision: hash
  license: spdx

The value of a label can be either of text, url, semver, hash or rfc3339:

By default, Hadolint ignores any label that is not specified in the label schema. To warn against such additional labels, turn on strict labels, using the command line:

hadolint --strict-labels --require-label version:semver Dockerfile

or the config file:

strict-labels: true

When strict labels is enabled, but no label schema is specified, hadolint will warn if any label is present.

It is a common pattern to fill the value of a label not statically, but rather dynamically at build time by using a variable:

FROM debian:buster
ARG VERSION="du-jour"
LABEL version="${VERSION}"

To allow this, the label schema must specify text as value for that label:

label-schema:
  version: text

To get most of hadolint, it is useful to integrate it as a check in your CI or into your editor, or as a pre-commit hook, to lint your Dockerfile as you write it. See our Integration docs.

• Code Review Platform Integrations
• Continuous Integrations
• Editor Integrations
• Version Control Integrations

An incomplete list of implemented rules. Click on the error code to get more detailed information.

• Rules with the prefix DL are from hadolint. Have a look at Rules.hs to find the implementation of the rules.

• Rules with the SC prefix are from ShellCheck (only the most common rules are listed, there are dozens more).

Please create an issue if you have an idea for a good rule.

If you are an experienced Haskeller, we would be very grateful if you would tear our code apart in a review.

To compile, you will need a recent Haskell environment and cabal-install.

1. Clone repository

   git clone --recursive [email protected]:hadolint/hadolint.git

2. Install dependencies and compile source

   cabal configure
   cabal build

3. (Optional) Install Hadolint on your system

   cabal install

The easiest way to try out the parser is using the REPL.

# start the repl
cabal repl
# overload strings to be able to use Text
:set -XOverloadedStrings
# import parser library
import Language.Docker
# parse instruction and look at AST representation
parseText "FROM debian:jessie"

Compile with unit tests and run them:

cabal configure --enable-tests
cabal build --enable-tests
cabal test

Run integration tests:

./integration_test.sh

Dockerfile syntax is fully described in the Dockerfile reference. Just take a look at Syntax.hs in the language-docker project to see the AST definition.

Hadolint uses many libraries to do the dirty work. In particular, language-docker is used to parse Dockerfiles and produce an AST which then can be analyzed. To build Hadolint against a custom version of such libraries, do the following. This example uses language-docker, but it would work with any other library as well.

1. In the same directory (e.g. /home/user/repos) clone Hadolint and language-docker git repositories

cd /home/user/repos
git clone https://github.com/hadolint/hadolint.git
git clone https://github.com/hadolint/language-docker.git

2. Make your modifications to language-docker

3. In the Hadolint repo, edit the cabal.project file, such that the packages property points to the other repo too

[...]
packages:
  .
  ../language-docker
[...]

4. Recompile Hadolint and run the tests

cd /home/user/repos/hadolint
cabal configure --enable-tests
cabal build --enable-tests
cabal test

• replicatedhq/dockerfilelint, the other linter used by the super-linter

• RedCoolBeans/dockerlint

• projectatomic/dockerfile_lint