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buildpacks-io

Cloud Native Buildpacks (CNB) is a CNCF Incubating project that transforms application source code into OCI images that can run on any cloud. The v3 specification — Buildpack API 0.12, Platform API 0.15, and Distribution API 0.3 — defines a modular, vendor-neutral contract between buildpacks, builders, lifecycles, and platforms. CNB consolidates a decade of production experience from Heroku and Pivotal/Cloud Foundry and provides the reference lifecycle (buildpacksio/lifecycle), the `pack` CLI, language bindings (libcnb in Go/Rust/.NET), the Kubernetes-native `kpack` platform, the public community registry at registry.buildpacks.io, and an open RFC-driven governance model.

agent aware

Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.

Kin Score

API Evangelist profiles buildpacks-io the way a machine reads it — 41 machine-readable artifacts across 8 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.

Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — buildpacks-io scores 49.9/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 39/100 (agent aware). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.

Kin Score

This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 49.9/100 · developing
Contract Quality 18.6 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 10.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 0.0 / 20
Operational Transparency 3.4 / 13
Governance 10.4 / 12
Discoverability 7.5 / 10
Agent readiness — 39/100 · agent aware
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 15 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 7 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

How we profile buildpacks-io

Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for buildpacks-io. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.

APIs 8

Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Buildpack Specification

The Buildpack API (currently 0.12) defines the contract between an individual buildpack and the lifecycle. It specifies the on-disk layout of a buildpack (buildpack.toml, bin/de...

Platform Specification

The Platform API (currently 0.15) defines how platforms (pack, kpack, Tekton Pipelines, GitLab Auto DevOps, CircleCI Orb, Project Piper) orchestrate the lifecycle. Specifies the...

Distribution Specification

The Distribution API (currently 0.3) defines how buildpacks, extensions, and builders are packaged as OCI artifacts and published to OCI registries. Covers labels (io.buildpacks...

Image Extension Specification

Image extensions emit Dockerfile snippets applied by the `extender` lifecycle binary to the build and/or run image. Share the buildpack surface (extension.toml, bin/detect, bin/...

Project Descriptor (project.toml)

The Project Descriptor extension defines project.toml — the optional app-root file letting developers declare their builder image, include/exclude globs, buildpack overrides (pr...

Service Bindings Extension

The Service Bindings extension specifies how external service credentials and configuration are surfaced to detect and build under $CNB_PLATFORM_DIR/bindings/. Aligns with the S...

buildpacks-io Buildpacks API

Retrieve buildpack version metadata

buildpacks-io Search API

Search the buildpack registry by keyword

Scroll within the panel for all 8 ·

Open Collections 1

Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Features 20

The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.

Notable capabilities this provider offers.

Buildpack API 0.12 — modular detect/build contract producing OCI layers without Dockerfiles
Platform API 0.15 — lifecycle orchestration surface (analyze, detect, restore, extend, build, export, rebase, launch)
Distribution API 0.3 — OCI-packaged buildpacks, extensions, and builders
Image extensions — Dockerfile snippets applied by the `extender` for base-image customization
Project Descriptor (project.toml) — declarative app-side build configuration
Build plan with provides/requires reconciliation across composite (meta) buildpacks
Per-layer caching with launch/build/cache types in `.toml`
Rebase — swap run image base layers in seconds without rebuilding app layers
Targets (os/arch/distros) replacing the legacy stacks model since Buildpack API 0.12
Per-layer SBOM emission in CycloneDX, SPDX, and Syft formats; aggregated into io.buildpacks.build.metadata
Standard OCI image labels (io.buildpacks.lifecycle.metadata, io.buildpacks.build.metadata, io.buildpacks.project.metadata, io.buildpacks.rebasable)
Reference lifecycle distributed as buildpacksio/lifecycle Docker image
Reference CLI `pack` (v0.40.6, May 2026) implementing the Platform Interface Specification
Public community registry at registry.buildpacks.io with `pack buildpack register/pull/yank`
Language bindings via libcnb (Go), libcnb-rs (Rust), and libcnb.net (.NET)
Kubernetes-native platform via kpack with Image/Builder/Stack CRDs
CI integrations — GitHub Actions, CircleCI Orb, GitLab Auto DevOps, Tekton, Project Piper
Multi-arch builders (linux/amd64, linux/arm64, windows) selected via target reconciliation
Service Bindings extension aligned with the Service Binding Specification for Kubernetes
Vendor-neutral CNCF Incubating project (incubation since 2018-10) with public RFC process

Scroll within the panel for all 20 ·

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Buildpacks Io Context

21 classes · 10 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.

buildpacks-io API Rules

5 rules · 3 warnings

SPECTRAL

buildpacks-io API Rules

8 rules · 3 errors · 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 4

Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Buildpack Build Plan

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

buildpack.toml

6 properties

JSON SCHEMA

launch.toml

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

project.toml (Project Descriptor)

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Buildpacks Io Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 2

Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Buildpacks Io Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Buildpacks Io Agentic Access

3 operations

3 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Every other property we hold for buildpacks-io — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

Design & Contract 3

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Learn 1

Tutorials, courses, talks, and written guidance

Company 1

The organization behind the API

← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/buildpacks-io · machine-readable index on apis.io