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Docker for Developers

Tags Matter

Explore the importance of tagging Docker images beyond the default latest tag. Discover how proper tagging supports versioning, rollbacks, running multiple versions simultaneously, and stable base image management. Understand best practices for using tags in building reliable, reproducible Docker images and improving your CI/CD pipeline control.

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Earlier, we saw that image names include a name and a tag. As a quick reminder, an image name is:

<repository_name>/<name>:<tag>
  • tag is optional; when missing, it is considered to be latest by default
  • repository_name can be a registry DNS or the name of a registry in the Docker Hub

While your images aren’t published to a registry, you don’t need to include a registry name. So, your image name is:

<name>:<tag>

The latest tag

In my demonstrations I didn’t include a tag; therefore the default latest tag was used. For instance, the actual image name was hello:latest when I ran the following command:

Shell
docker build -t hello .

As long as you are creating simple software, running on a simple CI/CD pipeline, it can be fine to use the latest ...