=== Containers and FreeBSD: Cloud Native Buildpacks

Links: +
link:https://buildpacks.io/[Cloud Native Buildpacks (CNBs)] URL: link:https://buildpacks.io/[] +
link:https://github.com/buildpacks/pack[GitHub Buildpacks repository] URL: link:https://github.com/buildpacks/pack[]

Contact: Robert Gogolok <gogolok@gmail.com>

link:https://buildpacks.io/[Cloud Native Buildpacks (CNBs)] transform application source code into container images.
Those images can run on any cloud.
With buildpacks, organizations can concentrate the knowledge of container build best practices within a specialized team, instead of having application developers across the organization individually maintain their own Dockerfiles.

Since the last report in 2025Q1, the project has transitioned from experimental support to official binary availability:

* Both the primary CLI tool `pack` and the core `lifecycle` component now ship FreeBSD binaries with every new upstream release.
* A new port for the CLI, `sysutils/pack`, has been submitted (link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=292952[PR 292952]).
  This will allow users to install the tool via `pkg install pack` once committed.
* The official link:https://github.com/buildpacks/samples[buildpacks/samples repository] now includes a Work-In-Progress pull request (link:https://github.com/buildpacks/samples/pull/201[PR #201]) for FreeBSD.

The next steps focus on lowering the barrier to entry for developers and improving the automation of the FreeBSD build path:

* Seek a FreeBSD ports committer to review and land the link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=292952[new port sysutils/pack] into the ports tree.
* Address a link:https://github.com/buildpacks/pack/issues/2546[known issue] in `pack builder create` where the tool incorrectly attempts to use non-FreeBSD URLs for certain binary downloads.
* Investigate creating link:https://paketo.io[Paketo-style buildpacks] specifically for FreeBSD.
  This would provide 'zero-config' builds for popular languages (e.g., Go) that produce FreeBSD-native binaries within containers.