Artifact Management

Skill: Artifact Management

> Expertise: OCI registry organization, image tagging strategy, Helm chart registry, artifact promotion, retention policies.

When to load

When designing artifact storage, setting up Helm chart publishing, configuring image retention, or promoting artifacts between environments.

Image Tagging Strategy

Registry: registry.example.com / myorg/

Development (PR):
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:pr-123-abc1234   ← per-PR, short-lived

Staging (main branch merge):
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:main-abc1234def   ← branch + sha

Release (git tag):
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:v2.3.1            ← semver tag
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:v2.3              ← minor floating (optional)
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service@sha256:abc...     ← digest (use in K8s manifests)

❌ NEVER in production:
  :latest / :main / :develop   ← mutable, untraceable

Build + Push with Digest Output

# GitHub Actions — capture digest for downstream jobs
- name: Build and push
  id: build
  uses: docker/build-push-action@v6
  with:
    tags: |
      registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:${{ github.sha }}
      registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:v${{ steps.version.outputs.tag }}
    outputs: type=image,push=true

- name: Export digest
  run: echo "${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}" > /tmp/digest.txt

# Use digest in deploy job (pinned, immutable)
- name: Deploy
  run: |
    helm upgrade --install order-service charts/order-service \
      --set image.digest=${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}

Helm Chart Registry (OCI)

# Push chart to OCI registry (Helm 3.8+)
helm package charts/order-service --version 1.2.3
helm push order-service-1.2.3.tgz oci://registry.example.com/myorg/charts

# Pull and use in CI/CD
helm upgrade --install order-service \
  oci://registry.example.com/myorg/charts/order-service \
  --version 1.2.3

# GitLab registry (built-in Helm registry)
helm push order-service-1.2.3.tgz oci://registry.gitlab.com/myorg/helm-charts

Artifact Promotion Pattern (staging → production)

# Promote: re-tag staging image as release candidate (no rebuild)
# Using crane (OCI tool) — copy image without pulling/pushing layers
crane copy \
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:main-abc1234 \
  registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:v2.3.1

# Verify digest is same (promotion = same bytes, different tag)
crane digest registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:main-abc1234
crane digest registry.example.com/myorg/order-service:v2.3.1
# Must match ✅

Registry Organization (Harbor / internal)

registry.example.com/
├── dev/        ← PR images; retain 7 days; no signing required
│   └── myorg/:
├── staging/    ← main branch images; retain 30 days; scan required
│   └── myorg/:
├── releases/   ← versioned releases; retain 1 year; signed + SBOM attached
│   └── myorg/:v
└── base/       ← internal base images; curated, patched, signed
    ├── python:3.12-slim
    └── golang:1.23-alpine

Retention Policy (Harbor / ECR)

# Harbor retention policy (UI or API)
rules:
  - tag_selectors:
      - kind: doublestar
        pattern: "pr-*"
    action: retain
    params:
      latestPushedK: 5        # keep only 5 latest per PR branch
    scope_selectors:
      - kind: daysAgo
        params: { daysAgo: "7" }  # and delete after 7 days regardless

  - tag_selectors:
      - kind: doublestar
        pattern: "v[0-9]*"    # semver tags
    action: retain            # retain all versioned releases

# ECR lifecycle policy
aws ecr put-lifecycle-policy \
  --repository-name myorg/order-service \
  --lifecycle-policy '{
    "rules": [{
      "rulePriority": 1,
      "selection": {
        "tagStatus": "tagged",
        "tagPrefixList": ["pr-"],
        "countType": "sinceImagePushed",
        "countUnit": "days",
        "countNumber": 7
      },
      "action": {"type": "expire"}
    }]
  }'

Vulnerability Database Refresh

# Trivy: update vuln DB before scanning (don't use stale DB in CI)
trivy image --download-db-only
# Or in GitHub Actions:
- uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@master
  with:
    update-db: true

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: sawrus
• Source: sawrus/agent-guides
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://sawrus.github.io/agent-guides

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.