Changes in this release:

• New: it is now possible to add entries to /etc/hosts for a container with additional_hosts (#520 - thanks to @sandarenu on Spectrum for the suggestion)

• New: a new built-in batect.project_directory config variable has been added.

  This can be used to get the path to the root project directory (the directory containing batect.yml) from an included file.

• New: build_directory now supports expressions such as references to environment variables and config variables.

• Changed (⚠️ breaking change): config variable names must now conform to certain requirements: they must start with a letter and contain only letters, digits, dashes (-), periods (.) and underscores (_), and must not start with batect.

  Config variable names that do not meet the requirements will cause batect to show an error on startup. This change ensures that other concepts can be introduced in the future without the risk of breaking existing projects.

• New: the wrapper script (batect on Linux and macOS and batect.cmd on Windows) will now check the checksum of the files it downloads to ensure they are downloaded correctly and have not been tampered with.

• Improved: the getting started tutorial has been completely rewritten to make it easier to read and introduce concepts more gradually. It also uses the new TypeScript sample project to remove some of the Java-isms.

• Improved: the container configuration reference page in the documentation has been reorganised and expanded to make it easier to find options and easier to understand how to use them.

  Each configuration option now includes:

  • the equivalent Docker CLI option (if there is one)
  • the equivalent Docker Compose option (if there is one)
  • an example
  • its default value (if there is one)

• Improved: the comparison page in the documentation has been updated with an updated comparison with Docker Compose and a new comparison with Dojo.

• Improved: the documentation now includes more details on the differences between the different output styles.

• Improved: the formatting of the documentation has been tweaked slightly to make it easier to read and distinguish between sections.

• Fixed: a Windows container would fail to start if a non-existent local directory was mounted into it

• Fixed: output from containers with lines starting or ending with carriage return characters (\r) was shown incorrectly in interleaved (--output=all) mode

• Changed: caches for Windows containers will now always use directory mounts rather than volume mounts.

  There is no performance penalty to using directory mounts into Windows containers, and this ensures that caches start with an empty directory.

Getting started

First time using batect? Take a look at the getting started guide, or the many sample projects.

How to upgrade from previous versions

If you're already using batect, run ./batect --upgrade to upgrade automatically.