name: podman description: Build and run containers with Podman without a daemon. Use when tasks mention podman, podman run, rootless containers, podman machine, podman-compose, or running containers without Docker daemon.

Podman

Use this skill to build and run containers with Podman in a daemonless, rootless-first architecture.

Quick Start

1. Run podman info to verify Podman is installed and rootless mode is active.
2. On macOS/Windows, start the VM first: podman machine start.
3. Use podman with the same flags as Docker — most commands are drop-in compatible.
4. Use podman system prune carefully — it removes stopped containers and unused images.

Intent Router

• references/install-and-setup.md — install Podman by platform, machine setup, config files
• references/command-cookbook.md — podman run/build/push/pod/generate/play/compose commands
• references/rootless-and-pods.md — rootless architecture, user namespaces, pod networking
• references/podman-compose-and-systemd.md — podman-compose, Quadlets, systemd unit generation

Workflow

Run a Container

# Run interactively
podman run --rm -it alpine:latest sh

# Run in background
podman run -d --name myapp -p 8080:80 nginx:latest

Build and Push Images

podman build -t myapp:latest .
podman push registry.example.com/myapp:latest

Manage Pods

podman pod create --name mypod -p 8080:80
podman run -d --pod mypod --name mycontainer nginx:latest
podman pod ps

Export to Kubernetes YAML

podman generate kube mypod > pod.yaml
podman play kube pod.yaml

Safety Guardrails

• Prefer rootless Podman (default on modern systems) over rootful to minimize attack surface — rootful Podman requires root privileges.
• On macOS/Windows, always start podman machine before running containers; the VM hosts the container runtime.
• Verify /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid contain entries for the current user before running rootless containers.
• Use podman system prune carefully — it removes all stopped containers, unused images, and build cache.
• When using podman generate kube, review the generated YAML before deploying to Kubernetes — some Podman-specific fields may not be portable.
• For production systemd services, prefer Quadlets over podman generate systemd — Quadlets are the modern, maintained approach.
• Use podman machine ssh to inspect the VM; do not run container workloads directly on the macOS host.

Related Skills

docker, containerd, cri-o