slimtoolkit
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Inspects, optimizes, and minifies container images by analyzing application behavior to remove unnecessary components and generate security profiles.
slim build --target myapp:latest --include-dir-bins /usr/lib/myapp/plugins slim build --target myapp:latest --include-ssh-client slim build --target myapp:latest --include-dir-bins /usr/local/tools slim build --target myapp:latest --include-ssh-client slim build --include-dir-bins . --include-ssh-client ./app slim images slim debug <container_name> slim build --obfuscate-metadata <image_name> slim build --include-workdir myimage docker-slim build --image-build-engine buildkit --image-build-arch amd64 <image_name> docker-slim pull --target <image:tag> --registry-account <user> --registry-secret <pass> docker-slim compose build --compose-project-name myproject --compose-env-file .env.local docker-slim build --target ./Dockerfile --delete-generated-fat-image slim xray --detect-duplicates --show-duplicates --show-special-perms <image_name> slim xray --detect-utf8 -o output.tar <image_name> slim build --http-probe-off -t myimage:v2 . slim check --target myapp --http-probe-exec ./custom_probe.sh slim xray --target myapp --change-data-hash abc123def456 slim build --target myapp --cbo-network host --cbo-build-arg "MY_VAR=value" slim xray --target myimage --layer-changes-max 100 --add-changes-max 50 --modify-changes-max 50 slim target myimage --exec /bin/setup.sh slim target myimage --exec-file ./init_script.sh docker-slim slim --publish-port 80:8080 myapp docker-slim slim --publish-exposed-ports myapp slim target my-app --include-bin-file /path/to/bins.txt --include-exe-file /path/to/exes.txt slim lint ./Dockerfile slim xray <image> --add-image-manifest --add-image-config slim xray --layer 5 myimage:latest slim build --exclude-pattern 'build/*' target-image:latest slim build --exclude-pattern '<pattern>' <image_name> docker-slim build --path-perms '/app/config.yml=owner:root,group:wheel' <image> docker-slim build --path-perms-file /tmp/perms.yml <image> slim build --image-overrides --new-entrypoint /app/bin/start --new-expose 8080 . docker-slim build --include-shell myimage:latest docker-slim build --include-exe /usr/local/bin/mytool myimage:latest docker-slim update slim --include-path-file /path/to/keep_list.txt my_app
Summary
slimtoolkit is an open-source, free command-line tool that inspects and shrinks container images by analyzing what an application actually uses at runtime, then stripping out the rest and auto-generating security profiles. You run it as a CLI against a Docker (or other container-runtime) build to produce a minified image, so it fits into a build pipeline rather than running as a service. It's aimed at developers and platform engineers who own container builds and want smaller, less exposed images without hand-editing Dockerfiles. Its own documentation frames it as the optimization half of a workflow that pairs with Root.io's vulnerability remediation for ongoing security. First committed in 2014 and now a CNCF Sandbox project with 78 contributors, it still saw 34 commits in the past year, though its last tagged release was over two and a half years ago.
Inspects, optimizes, and minifies container images by analyzing application behavior to remove unnecessary components and generate security profiles.
How slimtoolkit helps
How much smaller could this image be without changing what it does?
runs the application through its normal behavior while watching every file, package, and dependency actually touched, then builds a minified image containing only that set, so the reduction reflects real usage rather than a guess
Which files and packages in this image does the application never actually touch?
traces runtime behavior during a probed run and reports the full inventory of unused files and dependencies before anything is stripped, so the list can be reviewed before it is acted on
What would a compromised process inside this container be able to reach?
auto-generates a security profile from the same runtime trace, constraining the container to the calls and paths it was observed using
Is this build still working the same way after minification?
supports running the target application's own commands or an exec probe against the slimmed image so behavior can be checked before the smaller image replaces the original
What's actually different between two versions of the same image?
compares images and reports the object-level differences between them, including OCI-format images
Which known vulnerabilities in my dependencies are worth prioritizing right now?
looks up EPSS scores for identified vulnerabilities so exposure can be weighed by likelihood of exploitation rather than severity rating alone
Languages
Command line
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Values are placeholders taken from each option’s declared default. Nothing is executed here — the output shown is a recording of a run that already happened.
Media
Videos from the release notes, newest first. They play right here.Score card
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Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
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Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
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Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
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Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
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Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
- Community health
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Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
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Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
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Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
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Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply
Nine scores for slimtoolkit, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.
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Blank means never measured; nothing here is a filled-in zero.
Peer standings are included with Researcher and Business. See how this tool ranks against its competitors, using data we don't publish anywhere else.
See plans →Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.
How this is scored
- Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
- Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
- Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
- Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
- Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
- Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
- Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
- Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.
Release-note detail over time
See how much detail slimtoolkit puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.
Checking release-note history…
Releases
43 entries
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- September 20262
- February 20241
- January 20242
- December 20231
- November 20232
- August 20231
- July 20231
- June 20231
- April 20231
- January 20231
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- May 20211
- April 20211
- January 20211
- December 20201
- August 20202
- July 20201
- March 20203
- February 20201
- November 20193
- August 20191
- July 20191
- April 20191
- March 20192
- August 20181
Project health
Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in slimtoolkit/slim, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.
- Contributors 4 ±0 vs prior 12 months
- Maintainers 0 +0 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
- Bus factor 0 committers behind half the commits
- Community-filed 100% of issues opened, last 12 months
- Median time to close 1.1 days first maintainer reply 6.5 hours
- Open backlog 187 of 350 issues ever filed
- Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
- Open backlog 187
- Contributors / month 1
- Commits / month 1
- Stars 23,413
- questions 25%
- other 75%
Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this
Libraries its release ships
What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.
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