Documentation for gcr.io/distroless/python3

Image Contents

This image contains a minimal Linux, Python-based runtime.

Specifically, the image contains everything in the base image, plus:

• Python 3.13 and its dependencies.
• No shell

ldconfig and ctypes

We include a pre-generated ld.so.cache to support user/framework calls to ctypes.util.find_library(). If a user modifies the image by adding a new library, it will not be found in the cache without calling ldconfig to refresh the cache.

Usage

The entrypoint of this image is set to "python", so this image expects users to supply a path to a .py file in the CMD.

See the Python Hello World directory for an example.

Compatibility

If you are using distroless Python images in a multi-stage build, it is recommended that you use a compatible build image to prevent ABI-related errors. For example, when targeting python3-debian13, you should use python:3.13-slim-trixie for your build stage.

When building virtual environments, note that the distroless Python path is /usr/bin/python. To ensure that your virtual environment's internal links are correct, your build environment should match this path. If your build image uses a different path (like /usr/local/bin/python), you can create a symlink during the build stage as shown in this example.