docker
docker-py
Python

A Python library for the Docker Engine API

Last updated Jul 9, 2026
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README

Docker SDK for Python

Build Status

A Python library for the Docker Engine API. It lets you do anything the docker command does, but from within Python apps โ€“ run containers, manage containers, manage Swarms, etc.

Installation

The latest stable version is available on PyPI. Install with pip:

pip install docker

Older versions (< 6.0) required installing docker[tls] for SSL/TLS support.
This is no longer necessary and is a no-op, but is supported for backwards compatibility.

Usage

Connect to Docker using the default socket or the configuration in your environment:

import docker
client = docker.from_env()

You can run containers:

>>> client.containers.run("ubuntu:latest", "echo hello world")
'hello world\n'

You can run containers in the background:

>>> client.containers.run("bfirsh/reticulate-splines", detach=True)
<Container '45e6d2de7c54'>

You can manage containers:

>>> client.containers.list()
[<Container '45e6d2de7c54'>, <Container 'db18e4f20eaa'>, ...]

>>> container = client.containers.get('45e6d2de7c54')

>>> container.attrs['Config']['Image'] "bfirsh/reticulate-splines"

>>> container.logs() "Reticulating spline 1...\n"

>>> container.stop()

You can stream logs:

>>> for line in container.logs(stream=True):
...   print(line.strip())
Reticulating spline 2...
Reticulating spline 3...
...

You can manage images:

>>> client.images.pull('nginx')
<Image 'nginx'>

>>> client.images.list() [<Image 'ubuntu'>, <Image 'nginx'>, ...]

Read the full documentation to see everything you can do.

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