This project provides a collection of official base images for building and running .NET applications across various operating systems and hardware architectures. It includes standardized runtime environments, containerized development kits, and specialized images designed for isolated application execution.
The collection is distinguished by its focus on image optimization and security hardening. It offers distroless images that remove shells and package managers to reduce the attack surface, as well as composite layering and ahead-of-time compilation to improve startup performance and lower memory usage.
Broad capabilities include multi-platform cross-compilation for diverse CPU architectures, support for both Linux and Windows containers, and a sidecar diagnostic pattern for capturing telemetry and memory dumps. The system also covers secure configuration areas such as non-privileged user execution and NuGet credential management.