Go · Docker · Maintained fork

Lighthouse

A process for automating Docker container base-image updates — a maintained fork of Watchtower, which entered "no longer maintained" status upstream. Lighthouse carries that work forward with ongoing maintenance and security hardening, and stays drop-in compatible.

Picking up where upstream stopped

Watchtower was a beloved tool for keeping containerized apps current — until it stopped being maintained. Rather than let a useful project rot, Lighthouse forks it and keeps it alive: ongoing maintenance, security hardening, and a clean migration path that respects everyone already running it.

How it works

Push a new image to Docker Hub (or your own registry) and Lighthouse pulls it down, gracefully shuts down the running container, and restarts it with the exact options it was originally deployed with.

docker run --detach \
  --name lighthouse \
  --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  grioghar/lighthouse

Drop-in compatible by design

Migration friction is what kills forks. Lighthouse honours every existing WATCHTOWER_* environment variable and com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.* container label, so existing deployments keep working untouched. New deployments can use the LIGHTHOUSE_* variables and lighthouse.* labels instead — and when both are present, the Lighthouse form takes precedence.