Index

+++ title="Build your very first application with buildpacks" aliases=[ "/docs/app-developer-guide/build-an-app", "/docs/using-pack/building-app/", ] weight=1 +++

Building an app using Cloud Native Buildpacks is as easy as 1, 2, 3...

1. Select a builder

To build an app you must first decide which builder you're going to use. A builder includes the buildpacks that will be used as well as the environment for building your app.

When using pack, you can run pack builder suggest for a list of suggested builders.

pack builder suggest

For this guide we're actually going to use a sample builder, cnbs/sample-builder:noble, which is not listed as a suggested builder for good reason. It's a sample.

2. Build your app

Now that you've decided on what builder to use, we can build our app. For this example we'll use our samples repo for simplicity.

1. Check that the samples repo exists and if not - we clone it

ls samples || git clone https://github.com/buildpacks/samples

2. Build the app

pack build sample-app --path samples/apps/java-maven --builder cnbs/sample-builder:noble

TIP: If you don't want to keep specifying a builder every time you build, you can set it as your default builder by running pack config default-builder <BUILDER> for example pack config default-builder cnbs/sample-builder:noble

3. Run it

docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 sample-app

Congratulations!

The app should now be running and accessible via localhost:8080.

What about ARM apps?

Linux ARM image builds are now supported!

<a href="/docs/for-app-developers/how-to/special-cases/build-for-arm" class="button bg-blue">Linux ARM build guide</a>

What about Windows apps?

Windows image builds are now supported!

<a href="/docs/for-app-developers/how-to/special-cases/build-for-windows" class="button bg-blue">Windows build guide</a>