Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A Docker image with all dependencies for a single-cell analysis paper, pushed to Docker Hub and archived to Zenodo with a DOI
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A README listing required software versions is not a container image
Editorial commentary
A container image (as output) is a reproducibility-supporting container image — Docker, Singularity/Apptainer, or a generic OCI image — that packages a complete computational environment (operating system, dependencies, software versions, configuration), deposited in a container registry with a persistent identifier and treated as a citable research output. Its purpose is narrow but important: it closes the “dependency hell” gap that makes a result difficult or impossible to reproduce once the original researcher’s exact software environment has drifted or disappeared, by capturing that environment as a single, retrievable artefact.
A research office is most likely to see this as a deposit alongside a paper’s code and data — a Docker image containing every dependency for an analysis pushed to Docker Hub and separately archived to Zenodo (via a tar export) for a DOI, or registered with a domain-specific registry such as BioContainers. It is increasingly paired with a matching workflow definition, since the environment and the steps that ran in it are both needed for full reproducibility.
How it relates to sibling output types
- vs. Workflow (as output) — the workflow is the sequence of analytical steps; the container image is the environment those steps depend on. A README listing software versions is not a substitute for either.
- vs. Model (as output) — a container image may package the environment a model was trained in, but the model’s weights and architecture are a separate citable artefact.
References
- da Veiga Leprevost et al., “BioContainers,” Bioinformatics (2017).
- Boettiger, “An Introduction to Docker for Reproducible Research,” SIGOPS (2015).
Also known as
Docker image (output) · Singularity image (output)
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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