orbitd

README

Orbitd

A lightweight, set-and-forget container update daemon for Docker.

Orbitd monitors your containers and automatically updates them when new images are available—preserving all configuration, networks, volumes, and labels.

Features

• Zero Configuration — Works out of the box with sensible defaults
• Automatic Rollback — Restores previous container on update failure
• Flexible Policies — Digest-only or semantic versioning (patch/minor/major)
• Label Control — Opt-in or opt-out specific containers
• Image Cleanup — Removes old images after successful updates

Quick Start

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  orbitd:
    image: ghcr.io/mizuchilabs/orbitd:latest
    container_name: orbitd
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro

That's it. Orbitd will check all containers every 12 hours and update them when new digests are available.

Configuration

All settings are optional. Configure via environment variables or CLI flags:

Environment Variable	CLI Flag	Default	Description
ORBITD_INTERVAL	--interval	12h	Check frequency (e.g., 5m, 1h)
ORBITD_POLICY	--policy	digest	Update policy (see below)
ORBITD_CLEANUP	--cleanup	true	Remove old images after updates
ORBITD_REQUIRE_LABEL	--require-label	false	Only update labeled containers
ORBITD_DEBUG	--debug	false	Enable verbose logging

Update Policies

Policy	Behavior	Example
digest	Same tag, new digest (default)	nginx:1.25 → latest build
patch	Patch versions only	1.2.3 → 1.2.9
minor	Minor + patch versions	1.2.3 → 1.9.0
major	Any newer version	1.2.3 → 2.0.0

Semver policies require valid semver tags. Non-semver tags fall back to digest updates.

Container Labels

Control individual containers with labels:

services:
  # Updated automatically (default behavior)
  app:
    image: myapp:latest

  # Excluded from updates
  database:
    image: postgres:15
    labels:
      - "orbitd.enable=false"

  # Custom policy for this container
  api:
    image: myapi:1.0.0
    labels:
      - "orbitd.policy=minor"

Opt-In Mode

With ORBITD_REQUIRE_LABEL=true, only containers with orbitd.enable=true are monitored:

services:
  # Only this container is updated
  app:
    image: myapp:latest
    labels:
      - "orbitd.enable=true"

  # Ignored
  database:
    image: postgres:15

Installation

Docker (recommended)

docker run -d \
  --name orbitd \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  ghcr.io/mizuchilabs/orbitd:latest

Binary

Download from releases and run:

./orbitd start

License

Apache 2.0 License - see LICENSE for details

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.