Containerready

Containerready is an informal designation used to describe software that is prepared to run in container environments. A containerready application is typically packaged as a container image and configured to operate with the constraints and lifecycle of containers, rather than relying on host-specific resources.

Key criteria include packaging dependencies in the image, designing for stateless operation, externalizing configuration, handling persistent data via external volumes, and ensuring proper startup and shutdown behavior. Security best practices such as running as non-root, minimal privileges, and scanning images for vulnerabilities are also part of container readiness.

In practice, container readiness aligns with the use of container runtimes and orchestrators such as Docker, containerd, Kubernetes, or similar systems. Readiness can be demonstrated through health checks, readiness probes, and graceful rollout strategies that validate the application responds to traffic once started.

The concept is advisory rather than formal standard, with variations across organizations. It helps teams accelerate deployment, improve reproducibility, and reduce environmental drift when migrating workloads to containerized platforms.

See also: containerization, container image, Kubernetes, Docker, OCI, health check, readiness probe.