# iximiuz/cdebug

cdebug - a swiss army knife of container debugging

Repository: https://github.com/iximiuz/cdebug
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cdebug
Homepage: https://iximiuz.com/en/posts/docker-debug-slim-containers/
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: containerd, containers, debug, distroless, docker, kubernetes
Last push: 2026-01-18T19:11:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 60/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 63, release rhythm 34, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1411, "days_push": 227, "days_rel": 227, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1666, forks 67 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:19.560151+00:00)

## What it is
cdebug is a statically linked Go CLI that acts as a swiss army knife for debugging containers and pods, especially those built from slim or distroless images lacking shells and tools. It injects a debugging sidecar that shares the target's filesystem, and supports port forwarding and filesystem export across Docker, containerd, and Kubernetes.

## Use cases
- debug a distroless container with no shell
- get an interactive shell into a slim container
- exec into a containerd container without nerdctl tooling
- start a debug shell in a Kubernetes pod
- forward unpublished container ports to the host
- expose host endpoints to container or Kubernetes networks
- export a container or image filesystem to a local folder

## When to choose
- you need to troubleshoot running containers that lack shell or debugging tools
- you work across Docker, containerd, and Kubernetes and want one debugging tool
- you want ephemeral debug sidecars that feel like docker exec
- you need quick port-forwarding or filesystem export for containers

## When to avoid
- you only use Podman, OCI runc/crun, or CRI runtimes where support is missing or incomplete
- you need a GUI or long-running monitoring solution rather than an on-demand debugging tool
- your platform is Windows (only linux/amd64 and darwin builds are provided)

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: developer-tools, cli
- domain: developer-tools
- platform: cli
- tags: container-debugging, distroless, ephemeral-containers, port-forwarding, sidecar, docker, containerd, kubernetes, containers, devops, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- iximiuz/cdebug (main) score 60

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:19.560151+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:42:59.483746+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/iximiuz/cdebug (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:19.560151+00:00, sha ac55b674849a)
  - homepage: https://iximiuz.com/en/posts/docker-debug-slim-containers/ (fetched 2026-08-29T11:16:21.403852+00:00, sha 8662a42ab817)
  - site_page: https://iximiuz.com/en/about (fetched 2026-08-29T11:16:21.411629+00:00, sha 87ddc93c9454)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.