radius-build-images

name	radius-build-images
description	Build Radius container images from source for local development and testing. Push to any container registry that your Kubernetes cluster can pull from.
argument-hint	Optional: target registry (e.g. ghcr.io/my-username, myacr.azurecr.io/radius) — or leave blank to be prompted

Radius: Build and Push Container Images

Build Radius service images from source and push them to a container registry that your Kubernetes cluster can reach. This follows the workflow documented in docs/contributing/contributing-code/contributing-code-building/README.md and docs/contributing/contributing-code/contributing-code-control-plane/generating-and-installing-custom-build.md.

Images

The following images are built from this repository:

Image	Source
ucpd	deploy/images/ucpd
applications-rp	deploy/images/applications-rp
dynamic-rp	deploy/images/dynamic-rp
controller	deploy/images/controller
bicep	deploy/images/bicep
pre-upgrade	deploy/images/pre-upgrade
testrp	test/testrp
magpiego	test/magpiego

Not built here: The deployment-engine and dashboard images are not built from this repository. They are published separately to ghcr.io/radius-project/. When installing with a custom registry you need to pin these to their public location — see the radius-install-custom skill.

Procedure

Step 1: Verify Prerequisites

Check that the required tools are available:

1. Docker: Run docker info — confirm the Docker daemon is running.
2. Make: Run make --version — confirm GNU Make is installed.
3. Go: Run go version — the required version is in go.mod.

If any prerequisite is missing, stop and report which tool needs to be installed.

Step 2: Set the Registry

Ask the user for their container registry if DOCKER_REGISTRY is not already set. The registry must be one the user can push to and their Kubernetes cluster can pull from.

export DOCKER_REGISTRY=ghcr.io/<your-registry>
export DOCKER_TAG_VERSION=latest

Note: The user must already be logged in to the registry (docker login, az acr login, etc.). If you get authentication errors, ask the user to log in first.

Default: If DOCKER_REGISTRY is not set, the Makefile defaults to your OS username (from build/docker.mk). Always set it explicitly.

Step 3: Build and Push the Images

Build all images and push them to the registry in one command:

DOCKER_REGISTRY=${DOCKER_REGISTRY} DOCKER_TAG_VERSION=${DOCKER_TAG_VERSION} make docker-build docker-push

This compiles all Go binaries, builds each Docker image, and pushes them to the registry. The copy-manifests step runs automatically.

To build and push a single image (useful for fast iteration):

make docker-build-<image-name> && make docker-push-<image-name>
# e.g. make docker-build-applications-rp && make docker-push-applications-rp

Step 4: Verify

Confirm the images were pushed:

docker images --filter "reference=${DOCKER_REGISTRY}/*:${DOCKER_TAG_VERSION}"

Then proceed to the radius-install-custom skill to install Radius on your cluster.

Private Registries

For private registries that require authentication to pull, you will need to create a Kubernetes image pull secret when installing. See the radius-install-custom skill for details.

Multi-Architecture Builds

For native linux/arm64 images (e.g. on Apple Silicon with an arm64 Kubernetes cluster), first set up buildx (one-time):

make configure-buildx

Then build and push all architectures:

DOCKER_REGISTRY=${DOCKER_REGISTRY} DOCKER_TAG_VERSION=${DOCKER_TAG_VERSION} make docker-multi-arch-push

Quick Reference

Goal	Command
Set registry	export DOCKER_REGISTRY=ghcr.io/<your-registry> && export DOCKER_TAG_VERSION=latest
Build + push all images	make docker-build docker-push
Build all images	make docker-build
Push all images	make docker-push
Single image build + push	make docker-build-<name> && make docker-push-<name>
Multi-arch build + push	make docker-multi-arch-push
Setup buildx (one-time)	make configure-buildx

Key Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
DOCKER_REGISTRY	OS username (from build/docker.mk)	Target registry for built images. Set explicitly to your registry.
DOCKER_TAG_VERSION	latest	Image tag
DOCKER_CACHE_GHA	0	Set to 1 to enable GitHub Actions layer caching