Containerd, a minimal container runtime created out of the original Docker engine, has now been a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) member project since March 2017. Intended for use not just by the Docker engine as a lower layer container runtime and management layer above an OCI compliant executor, the expectation is that Kubernetes will use containerd as well as other projects that need a straightforward, embeddable container runtime without vendor control or opinionated behavior.

This project update will overview how we arrived at a "containerd 1.0" feature complete state from the original containerd implementation, and how it is being embedded and used in various projects like "cri-containerd" for Kubernetes and the recent Docker engine releases. We'll also look at the ease with which containerd can be embedded via its client library to offer container lifecycle management to any broader application.