Artifact Registry

Google Cloud Artifact Registry is a fully managed, universal package repository for storing, managing, and securing build artefacts and dependencies. It is the successor to Container Registry (GCR) and supports multiple artefact formats — Docker containers, language-specific packages, and OS packages — in a single, unified service.

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Why Artifact Registry?

Artifact Registry replaces the older Container Registry with a more capable and secure service:

Feature	Container Registry (GCR)	Artifact Registry
Formats	Docker only	Docker, Maven, npm, Python, Go, Apt, Yum, Helm, KubeFlow
Repository model	Per-project, per-region	Named repositories with fine-grained IAM
IAM	Bucket-level (GCS-based)	Repository-level and artefact-level
Vulnerability scanning	Basic	Integrated with Container Analysis and Binary Authorization
Cleanup policies	Manual	Automated cleanup policies
Virtual repositories	Not supported	Supported (aggregate multiple repos)
Remote repositories	Not supported	Supported (proxy external registries)

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Repository Types

Standard Repositories

Standard repositories store artefacts that you upload:

# Create a Docker repository
gcloud artifacts repositories create my-docker-repo \
  --repository-format=docker \
  --location=europe-west1 \
  --description="Production Docker images"

# Create an npm repository
gcloud artifacts repositories create my-npm-repo \
  --repository-format=npm \
  --location=europe-west1 \
  --description="Internal npm packages"

# Create a Python repository
gcloud artifacts repositories create my-python-repo \
  --repository-format=python \
  --location=europe-west1 \
  --description="Internal Python packages"

Remote Repositories

Remote repositories proxy external registries, caching artefacts locally:

# Create a remote repository that proxies Docker Hub
gcloud artifacts repositories create dockerhub-cache \
  --repository-format=docker \
  --location=europe-west1 \
  --mode=remote-repository \
  --remote-repo-config-desc="Docker Hub cache" \
  --remote-docker-repo=DOCKER-HUB

Virtual Repositories

Virtual repositories aggregate multiple repositories under a single endpoint:

# Create a virtual repository
gcloud artifacts repositories create my-virtual-repo \
  --repository-format=docker \
  --location=europe-west1 \
  --mode=virtual-repository

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Working with Docker Images

Authentication

# Configure Docker to authenticate with Artifact Registry
gcloud auth configure-docker europe-west1-docker.pkg.dev

Pushing Images

# Tag a local image for Artifact Registry
docker tag my-app:latest \
  europe-west1-docker.pkg.dev/my-project/my-docker-repo/my-app:v1.0.0

# Push the image
docker push \
  europe-west1-docker.pkg.dev/my-project/my-docker-repo/my-app:v1.0.0

Pulling Images

# Pull an image from Artifact Registry
docker pull \
  europe-west1-docker.pkg.dev/my-project/my-docker-repo/my-app:v1.0.0

Image Naming Convention

LOCATION-docker.pkg.dev/PROJECT_ID/REPOSITORY/IMAGE:TAG

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Working with Language Packages

npm Packages