Docker Image Updater | GitOps Automation for Docker Compose

THE PROBLEM

Manual deployments are killing your velocity.

Every new image pushed to your registry still requires a human to SSH in, pull the image, restart containers, and pray nothing breaks. It shouldn't be this way.

Error-prone manual steps
Running docker pull && docker compose up by hand risks version mismatches and missed services.
Zero visibility
No central dashboard to see which version is running on each server, or what happened during the last deploy.
Security lag
Vulnerability patches sit in your registry for days while you wait for someone to manually trigger an update.
Dangerous rollbacks
No automated revision history means a bad deploy requires frantic manual digging instead of one click.

root@prod-01 ~ bash

$ ssh deploy@prod-server-01

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

$ cd /opt/app

$ docker compose pull

Pulling backend ... done

Pulling frontend ... done

$ docker compose up -d

Recreating app_backend_1 ... done

Recreating app_frontend_1 ... done

# Hope nothing broke this time... 🤞

Repeat this for every server, every deploy. Forever.

THE SOLUTION

Push an image. It's automatically deployed.

Docker Image Updater is a self-hosted agent that bridges the gap between your registry and your server. Think ArgoCD — but for Docker Compose, with zero Kubernetes overhead.

Fully autonomous

Detects, pulls, and deploys new images with no human intervention required.

14-Tier version intelligence

Sorts Semver, timestamps, build IDs and more to always find the absolute latest correct tag.

Instant rollbacks

Keeps the last 5 revisions in history. One click returns you to a known-good state.

Start Automating Now

Docker Image Updater

Watching 3 services across 2 registries

Live

api-backend

v2.4.1 → v2.4.2

Deploying

web-frontend

v1.9.1

Synced

worker-queue

v3.1.0

Synced

Recent Operations

LIVE SESSION

[09:41:02] New image detected: backend:v2.4.2

[09:41:03] Pulling image layers from ECR...

[09:41:07] ✓ Health check passed. Rollout complete.

Workflow

Three steps from registry to running container

Run once, automate forever.

01

Connect

Run generate_env.sh to auto-detect your running containers and generate a full config in under 60 seconds.

02

Scan & Detect

The Rust engine continuously polls your registries, using 14-tier tag sorting to identify the newest valid image.

03

Deploy

Atomic container recreation with health verification. If it fails, automatic rollback kicks in immediately.

Live Architecture

One agent connects them all.

Docker Image Updater polls every registry and deploys to every service — all from a single lightweight agent.

Capabilities

Everything DevOps teams need

Production-grade features without enterprise complexity.

Enterprise Registry Support

Native integration with high-performance authentication for all major cloud providers and local registries.

Amazon ECR

Azure ACR

Google GCR

Docker Hub

Harbor Registry

Huawei SWR

DO DOCR

Atomic Rolling Updates

Uses --force-recreate to completely overwrite stale container states with zero zombie processes.

Health Verification

Tracks deploying state through the Docker API, marking services Synced only after confirmed healthy.

Trivy Vulnerability Scanning

Integrated CVE scanning blocks deployments of images with critical vulnerabilities before they reach production.

Revision History & Rollback

Keeps the last 5 image hashes per service. Roll back to any healthy revision instantly from the dashboard.

[09:41:02] INFO: Polling ECR registry for 'api-server:latest'...

[09:41:04] WARN: New tag detected: v2.4.2-prod-hf1

[09:41:05] EXEC: docker pull piku143/api-server:v2.4.2-prod-hf1

[09:41:07] INFO: Verifying container health (Attempt 1/3)...

[09:41:09] SUCCESS: Health check passed. Deployment finalized.

[09:41:10] INFO: Cleaning up old image layers...

Comparison

Manual vs. Automated

See why modern DevOps teams switch to Docker Image Updater.

Feature	Manual Deployments	Docker Image Updater
Deployment Speed	Slow	Instant (Automated)
Human Error Risk	High	Zero Risk
Deployment Visibility	Blind (Terminal only)	Full Dashboard UI
Rollback Speed	Minutes of debugging	Milliseconds (One-Click)
Security Checks	Ad-hoc / Never	Continuous (Trivy)

Quick Start

Up and running in 3 commands

No complex config. The setup script does the heavy lifting.

Terminal

# 1. Clone the repo

$ git clone https://github.com/pradeep-antier973/DI-Updater.git

$ cd DI-Updater

# 2. Auto-generate your config from running containers

$ bash generate_env.sh

# 3. Start the agent

$ docker compose -f updater-compose.yml up -d

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know before getting started.

Does it support Kubernetes?

Docker Image Updater is specifically built for Docker Compose environments. If you need GitOps for Kubernetes, ArgoCD or Flux are great alternatives. This tool intentionally avoids that complexity.

Is it production-safe?

Yes. The agent uses the standard Docker Engine API, performs health verification after every deploy, integrates Trivy scanning for CVE detection, and maintains a rollback history. It's designed with reliability as the primary concern.

Which container registries are supported?

Docker Hub, Amazon ECR, Azure Container Registry (ACR), Google Artifact Registry (GCR), GitHub Container Registry (GHCR), Harbor, Huawei SWR, DigitalOcean (DOCR), and any registry following the Docker Registry V2 API spec.

How long does setup take?

Under 5 minutes. Run generate_env.sh on your server, it auto-discovers your running containers, and writes a complete config file. Then start the agent with one Docker Compose command.

How does the 14-tier sorting algorithm work?

The engine scores every available tag using 14 distinct priority rules — including strict Semver parsing, ISO timestamp detection, build IDs, and more — to always identify the single latest valid tag without false positives.

Never SSH to deploy again.

Docker Image Updater is free, open source, and ready to automate your entire deployment workflow in minutes.

Deploy in 5 Minutes Star on GitHub

MIT License · Open Source · Self-Hosted

Stop SSHing.Start Automating.