Google is introducing a new open-source project for Java developers. Jib is an Java containerizer designed to help Java developers build containers using the tools they already know.

The company explained while containers can make developing Java workflows easier, Java developers are often not container experts, which can make the process of containerizing their apps difficult.

Jib addresses this by handling all of the steps of packaging an application into a container image, according to Google. It is directly integrated into both Maven and Gradle, and does not require the developer to have Docker installed or write a Dockerfile. Because of this tight integration, Good explained the project has access to all of the information it needs to package applications. Variations in Java builds will be automatically picked up during subsequent container builds.

By using image layering and registry caching, Jib is able to achieve fast, incremental builds, Google said. It organizes applications into distinct layers and will only rebuild and push the layers that have changes in them.

Jib also supports declaratively building container images from Maven and Gradle metadata, so it can be configured to make reproducible build images as long as the inputs stay the same.