content/manuals/desktop/use-desktop/builds.md
The Builds view provides an interactive interface for inspecting build history, monitoring active builds, and managing builders directly in Docker Desktop.
By default, the Build history tab displays a list of completed builds, sorted by date (newest first). Switch to the Active builds tab to view ongoing builds.
If you're connected to a cloud builder through Docker Build Cloud, the Builds view also lists any active or completed cloud builds by other team members connected to the same cloud builder.
[!NOTE]
When building Windows container images using the
docker buildcommand, the legacy builder is used which does not populate the Builds view. To switch to using BuildKit, you can either:
- Set
DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1in the build command, such asDOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build .or- Use the
docker buildx buildcommand
Open the Builds view from the Docker Dashboard to access:
Only builds from active, running builders are listed. Builds from removed or stopped builders are not shown.
The top-right corner shows the name of your currently selected builder, and the Builder settings button lets you manage builders in the Docker Desktop settings.
{{< summary-bar feature_name="Import builds" >}}
The Import builds button lets you import build records for builds by other people, or builds in a CI environment. When you've imported a build record, it gives you full access to the logs, traces, and other data for that build, directly in Docker Desktop.
The build summary
for the docker/build-push-action and docker/bake-action GitHub Actions
includes a link to download the build records, for inspecting CI jobs with
Docker Desktop.
To inspect a build, select the build that you want to view in the list. The inspection view contains a number of tabs.
The Info tab displays details about the build.
If you're inspecting a multi-platform build, the drop-down menu in the top-right of this tab lets you filter the information down to a specific platform:
The Source details section shows information about the frontend frontend and, if available, the source code repository used for the build.
The Build timing section of the Info tab contains charts showing a breakdown of the build execution from various angles.
The chart colors and legend keys describe the different build operations. Build operations are defined as follows:
| Build operation | Description |
|---|---|
| Local file transfers | Time spent transferring local files from the client to the builder. |
| File operations | Any operations that involve creating and copying files in the build. For example, the COPY, WORKDIR, ADD instructions in a Dockerfile frontend all incur file operations. |
| Image pulls | Time spent pulling images. |
| Executions | Container executions, for example commands defined as RUN instructions in a Dockerfile frontend. |
| HTTP | Remote artifact downloads using ADD. |
| Git | Same as HTTP but for Git URLs. |
| Result exports | Time spent exporting the build results. |
| SBOM | Time spent generating the SBOM attestation. |
| Idle | Idle time for build workers, which can happen if you have configured a max parallelism limit. |
The Dependencies section shows images and remote resources used during the build. Resources listed here include:
ADD Dockerfile instructionADD Dockerfile instructionThe Configuration section of the Info tab shows parameters passed to the build:
The Build results section shows a summary of the generated build artifacts, including image manifest details, attestations, and build traces.
Attestations are metadata records attached to a container image. The metadata describes something about the image, for example how it was built or what packages it contains. For more information about attestations, see Build attestations.
Build traces capture information about the build execution steps in Buildx and BuildKit. The traces are available in two formats: OTLP and Jaeger. You can download build traces from Docker Desktop by opening the actions menu and selecting the format you want to download.
Using a Jaeger client, you can import and inspect build traces from Docker Desktop. The following steps show you how to export a trace from Docker Desktop and view it in Jaeger:
Start Jaeger UI:
$ docker run -d --name jaeger -p "16686:16686" jaegertracing/all-in-one
Open the Builds view in Docker Desktop, and select a completed build.
Navigate to the Build results section, open the actions menu and select Download as Jaeger format.
<video controls> <source src="/assets/video/build-jaeger-export.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> </video>Go to http://localhost:16686 in your browser to open Jaeger UI.
Select the Upload tab and open the Jaeger build trace you just exported.
Now you can analyze the build trace using the Jaeger UI:
When inspecting a successful completed build or an ongoing active build, the Source tab shows the frontend used to create the build.
If the build failed, an Error tab displays instead of the Source tab. The error message is inlined in the Dockerfile source, indicating where the failure happened and why.
The Logs tab displays the build logs. For active builds, the logs are updated in real-time.
You can toggle between a List view and a Plain-text view of a build log.
The List view presents all build steps in a collapsible format, with a timeline for navigating the log along a time axis.
The Plain-text view displays the log as plain text.
The Copy button lets you copy the plain-text version of the log to your clipboard.
The History tab displays statistics data about completed builds.
The time series chart illustrates trends in duration, build steps, and cache usage for related builds, helping you identify patterns and shifts in build operations over time. For instance, significant spikes in build duration or a high number of cache misses could signal opportunities for optimizing the Dockerfile.
You can navigate to and inspect a related build by selecting it in the chart, or using the Past builds list below the chart.
The Builder tab in Settings lets you:
For more information about managing builders, see Change settings