Use uv in a Dockerfile with layer-cached dependency installs (official images, uv sync --locked, cache mounts)

domain: docs.astral.sh/uv · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Documented steps

  1. Get uv into your image from the official images — pin the version: `COPY --from=ghcr.io/astral-sh/uv:<version> /uv /uvx /bin/`. Variants exist (distroless :latest, :alpine, :python3.12-alpine, etc.); a digest pin is most reproducible.
  2. Install dependencies BEFORE copying your source so the layer caches: RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/uv \ --mount=type=bind,source=uv.lock,target=uv.lock \ --mount=type=bind,source=pyproject.toml,target=pyproject.toml \ uv sync --locked --no-install-project
  3. Then copy the project and finish the install: COPY . /app RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/uv uv sync --locked
  4. Recommended env vars: `ENV UV_COMPILE_BYTECODE=1` (faster startup, larger image/longer install) and `ENV UV_LINK_MODE=copy` (silences hardlink warnings when the cache mount is on a different filesystem). Exclude dev deps in production with --no-dev or UV_NO_DEV=1.
  5. Add `.venv` to .dockerignore so a local environment is never copied into the image. For minimal final images, multi-stage build: sync with --no-editable, then copy only the .venv into the runtime stage.
  6. Docs: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/guides/integration/docker/

Known gotchas

Related routes

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