440-docker

440-docker is a cursor rule for coding agents from d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook. It costs 0 tokens per session (747 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of required rules for building and running Docker containers, which package applications and their dependencies so they run consistently.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when writing Dockerfiles or Docker Compose configurations to check image versions, dependencies, secrets, users, runtime size, caching, and publishing requirements.
Why use it?
It prevents unsafe images, unreproducible builds, leaked secrets, excessive build contexts, and insecure container runtimes.

Cursor rule

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/440-docker
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for 440-docker

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/440-docker.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/440-docker)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/440-docker"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook/440-docker.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 747 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00747
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00374
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00149
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00075

Measured 3d ago against content hash 56ad85f15c3c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

440-docker scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 3d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

rules/440-docker.mdc · 48 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 48 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Docker and Container Gates

This rule contains only mandatory policy. Use the containers and orchestration skill (${HANDBOOK_ROOT}/skills/containers-orchestration/SKILL.md) and its Docker reference (${HANDBOOK_ROOT}/skills/containers-orchestration/references/docker.md) for procedures, examples, Compose patterns, and troubleshooting.

Reproducible Inputs

  • Pin production base images and deployed images by immutable digest. A readable tag may accompany the digest.
  • Do not use latest or another mutable tag as a production deployment input.
  • Use lock files and deterministic package-manager commands. Do not resolve unconstrained dependencies during the image build.
  • Keep build context narrow with .dockerignore; exclude .git, local dependencies, test artifacts not required by the build, credentials, and environment files.
  • Never copy secrets into an image or pass secrets through ARG, ENV, source files, or the build context. Use BuildKit secret mounts or the deployment platform's secret broker.

Runtime Security

  • Run the final image as a specific non-root user.
  • Use the smallest runtime image that satisfies compatibility and support requirements.
  • Use multi-stage builds when compilers, package managers, headers, or build-time credentials are not required at runtime.
  • Do not grant privileged mode, host namespaces, broad capabilities, or writable host paths without a documented, time-bounded exception.
  • Prefer a read-only root filesystem and dropped Linux capabilities where the workload supports them.
  • Include a meaningful health check when the runtime exposes a health signal; do not add a probe that only proves the process exists.

Build Cache Contract

  • Order instructions by change frequency: stable toolchain and dependency manifests before frequently changing source.
  • Copy dependency manifests and lock files before application source, install dependencies, then copy source.
  • Treat intentional layers as cache boundaries. Do not collapse unrelated dependency, build, and source work merely to minimize layer count.
  • Combine only logically coupled package-manager operations, such as index refresh, install, and cleanup.
  • Use BuildKit cache mounts for performance where useful, but require the build to succeed with an empty or garbage-collected cache.
  • Do not disable a package manager's cache while mounting that same cache directory.
  • Verify cache reuse with repeated BuildKit builds. If Docker or BuildKit is unavailable, report that runtime reuse was not verified.

Read the full file on GitHub · 48 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 3d ago First seen · 48 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 56ad85f15c3c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

440-docker is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository d-padmanabhan/agent-engineering-handbook (16 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 747 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.