dive

Project Overview

Dive is a tool for exploring a Docker image, layer contents, and discovering ways to shrink the size of your Docker/OCI image.

Key Features

• Show Docker image contents broken down by layer
• Indicate file changes (added, modified, removed) in each layer
• Estimate "image efficiency" and wasted space
• Quick build/analysis cycles: dive build -t some-tag .
• CI integration with pass/fail results via CI=true
• Support for multiple image sources and container engines (Docker, Podman, docker-archive)

Target Audience

• Developers needing to optimize Docker image sizes
• DevOps and SRE engineers
• Teams wanting to check image quality in CI pipelines

Quick Start

1. Install via package managers:
   • Ubuntu/Debian: download and install the .deb package
   • Or via Snap: sudo snap install dive
   • macOS: brew install dive
2. Run: dive <image-tag> to analyze an image
3. Use dive build -t <tag> . to build and analyze immediately

Core Advantages

• Intuitive visualization of image layers
• Quickly identify wasted space in images
• CI integration for automated quality checks
• Supports multiple container engines and image formats

System Requirements

• OS: Linux, macOS, Windows
• Architectures: x86_64, arm64
• Additional Dependencies: Docker or Podman (container engine)

Notes

• Currently beta quality
• Snap installation may be incompatible with Docker installed via apt