Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America 2026

It's common practice to include the Git commit hash in a container image label to serve as a reference, but are you using container labels (and artifact metadata) to their full potential? By embedding metadata into your artifacts you expand your GitOps capabilities. Implement a simple build-cache-like mechanism when building your artifacts, generate robust changelogs across your multi-repo product, or provide better transparency to your security team for their audits and reports. It's even possible to perform Git Bisect-like problem determination between built images. While this talk will explore real-world examples using container images as portable sources of truth, these concepts can be applied anywhere it's possible to add additional metadata to built artifacts.