# krallin/tini

A tiny but valid `init` for containers

Repository: https://github.com/krallin/tini
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/tini
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: docker, linux, c, init, init-system
Last push: 2025-05-08T14:42:27+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 20, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4205, "days_push": 482, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 11220, forks 546 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:46.482533+00:00)

## What it is
Tini is a tiny init system written in C designed to run as PID 1 inside containers. It spawns a single child process, reaps zombie processes, and forwards signals like SIGTERM so containerized applications shut down correctly.

## Use cases
- prevent zombie processes in docker containers
- forward SIGTERM to my app in a container
- proper init as pid 1 in docker image
- make docker containers shut down gracefully
- avoid pid exhaustion from zombie processes
- container entrypoint init

## When to choose
- you run Docker 1.13+ and want `docker run --init` behavior or a standalone init binary
- your containerized app spawns child processes and lacks its own signal handling
- you need a minimal, dependency-free PID 1 for containers

## When to avoid
- your container runs a single process that already handles signals and reaps children
- you use an init system like s6 or dumb-init with features you need beyond simple reaping
- you are not running in a container environment

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: container-runtime, cli, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, operating-systems
- platform: cli
- tags: init-system, zombie-process-reaping, signal-forwarding, docker-entrypoint, pid-1, containers, devops, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- krallin/tini (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:46.482533+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 2026-08-29T17:16:26.452319+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/krallin/tini (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:46.482533+00:00, sha 594002be4391)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.