What is oras?

ORAS lets you use a container registry as a general-purpose file storage system. Instead of only storing container images, you can push and pull any kind of file, text, YAML, tarballs, or whatever you need, to a registry that supports the OCI (Open Container Initiative) standard. Think of it as a way to turn a registry into a convenient cloud locker for arbitrary files. At a high level, the tool provides a simple command-line interface. You run a command like "oras push" with the registry address and your file, and it uploads the file to the registry. Later, you can retrieve it with "oras pull." The files are stored as "layers," similar to how container images work. You can also tag files with custom media types so you can organize and filter what you download later. If you've used "docker login" before, ORAS reuses those same credentials, so authentication feels familiar. The main audience is developers and teams who already work with container registries and want a lightweight way to store and share non-container artifacts. For example, a team packaging Helm charts or Cloud Native Application Bundles (CNAB) could store them in a registry alongside their container images. This keeps everything in one place, versioned and accessible through the same infrastructure they already use. It also works as a Go library, so tool builders can add push-and-pull functionality directly into their own applications. The project was originally donated by Microsoft and works with registries like Docker Distribution (version 2.7+), Azure Container Registry, and others that support OCI image formats. It's worth noting that as of early 2019, the project was still actively evolving, adding annotation support and testing integration with Helm 3 and CNAB, so it was designed to be flexible and open to community feedback for new use cases beyond those initial examples.