Docker Agent

Build, run, and share AI agents with a declarative YAML config, rich tool ecosystem, and multi-agent orchestration.

docker-agent lets you create and run intelligent AI agents that collaborate to solve complex problems — no code required.

docker-agent is a docker CLI plugin and can be run with docker agent.

Define agents in YAML, give them tools, and let them work.

agents:
  root:
    model: openai/gpt-5-mini
    description: A helpful AI assistant
    instruction: |
      You are a knowledgeable assistant that helps users with various tasks.
      Be helpful, accurate, and concise in your responses.
    toolsets:
      - type: mcp
        ref: docker:duckduckgo
docker agent run agent.yaml

• Multi-agent architecture — Create teams of specialized agents that delegate tasks automatically
• Rich tool ecosystem — Built-in tools + anyMCP server (local, remote, or Docker-based)
• AI provider agnostic — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, AWS Bedrock, Mistral, xAI,Docker Model Runner , and more
• YAML configuration — Declarative, versionable, shareable
• Advanced reasoning — Built-in think, todo, and memory tools
• RAG — Pluggable retrieval with BM25, embeddings, hybrid search, and reranking
• Package & share — Push agents to any OCI registry, pull and run them anywhere

Docker Desktop (4.63+) — docker-agent CLI plugin is pre-installed. Just run docker agent.

Homebrew — brew install docker-agent. Run docker-agent directly or symlink the binary to ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-agent and run docker agent.

Binary releases — Download from GitHub Releases. Symlink the docker-agent binary to ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-agent to be able to use docker agent, or use docker-agent directly.

Set at least one API key (or use Docker Model Runner for local models):

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...        # or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY, etc.

See Set Up a Model for the full walkthrough of both paths (cloud API key or local model).

docker agent run

docker agent run myorg/agent:tag

docker agent new

docker agent run agent.yaml

More examples in the examples/ directory.

• Installation ·Set Up a Model ·Quick Start
• Agents ·Models ·Tools ·Multi-Agent
• Configuration Reference
• TUI ·CLI ·MCP Mode ·RAG
• Model Providers ·Docker Model Runner

Read the Contributing guide to get started. We use docker-agent to build docker-agent:

docker agent run ./golang_developer.yaml

We collect anonymous usage data to improve the tool. See Telemetry.