Earthly (12,047 Stars) Build Framework 2026: Repeatable Builds with a Familiar Dockerfile Syntax

Earthly (12,047 stars) brings Dockerfile-like syntax to builds and CI: repeatable, parallel, and cache-friendly. Here is how to migrate a Makefile project to Earthly.

💡 What You Will Learn

Earthly (12,047 stars) brings Dockerfile-like syntax to builds and CI: repeatable, parallel, and cache-friendly. Here is how to migrate a Makefile project to Earthly.

📜 Table of Contents

• The short answer
• Key ideas
• Example Earthfile
• Why teams switch from Makefile
• FAQ

The short answer

earthly/earthly (12,047 stars, Go) is a build framework that makes builds fast, repeatable, and CI-friendly. It uses a syntax similar to Dockerfiles, so there is almost no learning curve if you already know Docker. Every target runs in an isolated environment, so builds behave the same on your laptop and in CI.

Key ideas

• Earthfile: a file with build targets, written like a Dockerfile
• Hermetic execution: each target runs in a container with declared dependencies
• Parallelism: independent targets build concurrently
• Caching: layers are cached like Docker layers, so CI re-runs are fast

Example Earthfile

VERSION 0.8
FROM python:3.12
WORKDIR /src

build:
    COPY requirements.txt ./
    RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
    COPY . .
    SAVE ARTIFACT . /build

test:
    FROM +build
    RUN pytest tests/

Run it:

# install
curl -L https://earthly.dev/get | sh
# build and test
earthly +build
earthly +test

Why teams switch from Makefile

• No more works-on-my-machine - every build runs in the same container image.
• Parallel targets cut CI time dramatically on multi-service repos.
• Remote cache (Earthly Cloud or self-hosted) makes even cold CI fast.

FAQ

Is it free? Yes - Earthly is open source (MPL-2.0), with optional paid cloud features.

Can it replace Docker builds? It complements them: Earthly builds images and artifacts, and can push to any registry.

Does it work with GitHub Actions? Yes - there is a GitHub Action (earthly/earthly-action) that runs Earthly in CI.

❓ FAQ

Is it free?

Yes - Earthly is open source (MPL-2.0), with optional paid cloud features.

Can it replace Docker builds?

It complements them: Earthly builds images and artifacts, and can push to any registry.

Does it work with GitHub Actions?

Yes - there is a GitHub Action (`earthly/earthly-action`) that runs Earthly in CI.