repo2docker/docs/source/dev_newbuildpack.md

Adding a new buildpack to repo2docker

A new buildpack is needed when a new language or a new package manager should be supported. Existing buildpacks are a good model for how new buildpacks should be structured.

Criteria to balance and consider

Criteria to balance are:

1. Maintenance burden on repo2docker.
2. How easy it is to use a given setup without support from repo2docker natively. There are two escape hatches here - postBuild and Dockerfile.
3. How widely used is this language / package manager? This is the primary tradeoff with point (1). We (Binder / Jupyter) team do not want to make new formats as much as possible, so ideally we can just say 'X repos on binder already use this using one of the escape hatches in (2), so let us make it easy and add native support'.

Adding libraries or UI to existing buildpacks

Note that this doesn't apply to adding additional libraries / UI to existing buildpacks. For example, if we had an R buildpack and it supported IRKernel, it is much easier to just support RStudio / Shiny with it, since those are library additions than entirely new buildpacks.