# moby/swarmkit

A toolkit for orchestrating distributed systems at any scale. It includes primitives for node discovery, raft-based consensus, task scheduling and more.

Repository: https://github.com/moby/swarmkit
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/swarmkit
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T18:32:56+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 81/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 48, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3856, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 132, "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 3647, forks 672 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:12.938244+00:00)

## What it is
SwarmKit is a Go toolkit for orchestrating distributed systems, providing Raft-based consensus, node discovery, task scheduling, and service orchestration primitives. It powers Docker Swarm mode and can be embedded to build custom cluster orchestrators.

## Use cases
- build a custom container orchestrator
- coordinate distributed nodes with raft consensus
- run replicated services across a cluster
- automate TLS certificate rotation between nodes
- reschedule tasks when a node fails
- embed swarm mode into docker

## When to choose
- you need orchestration primitives to embed in a Go application
- you want secure-by-default cluster membership with mutual TLS
- you want orchestration without an external database dependency

## When to avoid
- you just want to run containers - use Docker Swarm or Kubernetes directly
- you need the full Kubernetes ecosystem of extensions
- you need a standalone orchestrator CLI out of the box

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: container-orchestration, scheduling, auth, cryptography, rpc, microservices
- domain: microservices, infrastructure-as-code, cloud-computing
- platform: go, cross-platform
- tags: raft-consensus, swarm-mode, cluster-management, node-discovery, task-scheduling, mutual-tls, docker-swarm, containers, devops, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- moby/swarmkit (main) score 81

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:12.938244+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 2026-08-29T18:31:43.899405+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/moby/swarmkit (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:12.938244+00:00, sha e5e3391a9aa8)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.