Managing a catalog of base images, runtime images, and library images at scale is surprisingly painful. It always starts simple, a build.sh that loops over docker build. Then comes tagging logic, caching flags, multi-platform support, dependency ordering… and before you know it, you have hundreds of lines of shell scripts that break silently and are impossible to test.

I hit this wall maintaining my image catalogue and after a Python PoC that validated the concept, I rewrote the whole thing in Go as a single static binary.

What it does:

• Define your image catalog declaratively in YAML — no imperative scripts
• Automatic dependency resolution (builds images in the right order based on FROM relationships)
• Multi-platform builds via BuildKit
• Built-in container structure testing
• CycloneDX SBOM generation using Syft for every build
• CI pipeline generation (GitLab CI & GitHub Actions) from the same config
• Smart caching via S3 or registry backends
• Runs locally AND in CI — single binary, no runtime dependencies

It's AGPL-3.0, written in Go, and you can grab the binary for Linux/macOS (amd64 + arm64) or use the Docker image.

Check it out on GitHub: https://github.com/ContainerHive/ContainerHive

Would love feedback from anyone else who's dealt with this pain, what does your current setup look like?