A pull request must not touch :latest #9

2026-07-27T09:53:24-05:00

austin commented

2026-07-27 09:53:24 -05:00

Preventive: this repo carries the workflow that stranded bennett-portfolio.

The bug

The runner builds on the host's Docker daemon — the same daemon the live containers run on — so docker build -t …:latest is a deployment. Watchtower compares the running container against :latest, sees a difference, and recreates it from the locally built image. Gating only the push on != 'pull_request' never helped: the build was the deploy.

The quieter failure is the damaging one. Reassigning :latest leaves the running container's old image untagged; once pruned, Watchtower cannot read it to compare against and gives up every cycle:

warning: Failed to retrieve container image info: No such image: sha256:…
info   : Unable to update container: no available image info.

bennett-portfolio hit this on 27 Jul — a four-day-old build, 720 failed update attempts in 24 hours, healthy throughout, no alarm anywhere. It had to be recreated by hand.

The fix

A PR builds pr-<number>, which nothing watches. Same change itsthevine and bennett-portfolio now carry. Trivy still scans whatever was built, so a broken Dockerfile or new HIGH/CRITICAL CVE still gates the merge; the push step is untouched and still main-only.

Note

This repo is not currently stranded — I checked every running container and only bennett-portfolio was affected. This closes the exposure before it bites.

Generated with Claude Code

Preventive: this repo carries the workflow that stranded `bennett-portfolio`. ### The bug The runner builds on the host's Docker daemon — the same daemon the live containers run on — so `docker build -t …:latest` **is** a deployment. Watchtower compares the running container against `:latest`, sees a difference, and recreates it from the locally built image. Gating only the *push* on `!= 'pull_request'` never helped: the build was the deploy. The quieter failure is the damaging one. Reassigning `:latest` leaves the running container's old image untagged; once pruned, Watchtower cannot read it to compare against and gives up every cycle: ``` warning: Failed to retrieve container image info: No such image: sha256:… info : Unable to update container: no available image info. ``` `bennett-portfolio` hit this on 27 Jul — a four-day-old build, **720 failed update attempts in 24 hours**, `healthy` throughout, no alarm anywhere. It had to be recreated by hand. ### The fix A PR builds `pr-<number>`, which nothing watches. Same change `itsthevine` and `bennett-portfolio` now carry. Trivy still scans whatever was built, so a broken Dockerfile or new HIGH/CRITICAL CVE still gates the merge; the push step is untouched and still main-only. ### Note This repo is **not** currently stranded — I checked every running container and only `bennett-portfolio` was affected. This closes the exposure before it bites. Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

austin added 1 commit 2026-07-27 09:53:24 -05:00

A pull request must not touch :latest

build-and-publish / build (pull_request) Successful in 1m45s

Details

5fd5bf940b

This runner builds on the host's Docker daemon — the same daemon the live
container runs on — so retagging :latest IS a deployment. Watchtower compares
the running container's image against :latest, sees they differ, and recreates
the container from whatever was just built locally. Gating only the push was
never enough; the build itself was the deploy.

The worse failure is quieter. Reassigning :latest leaves the running
container's old image untagged, and once that image is pruned Watchtower can no
longer read it to compare against:

  Failed to retrieve container image info: No such image: sha256:…
  Unable to update container: no available image info.

bennett-portfolio hit exactly that. It sat on a four-day-old build, failing to
update 720 times in twenty-four hours, reporting healthy the whole time, and had
to be recreated by hand. This repo has the same workflow and the same exposure —
it simply has not been unlucky yet.

A PR now builds pr-<number>, which nothing watches. Trivy scans whatever was
built either way, so a bad Dockerfile or a new CVE still blocks the merge, and
the push step is unchanged — still main-only.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>

austin merged commit e643062b17 into main

2026-07-27 09:58:25 -05:00

austin deleted branch ci/pr-image-tag

2026-07-27 09:58:25 -05:00

austin referenced this issue from a commit

2026-08-11 11:47:34 -05:00

Merge pull request 'A pull request must not touch :latest' (#9) from ci/pr-image-tag into main

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Reference: ReformedWitness/rwn-website#9