[ronef]

Yes, this hits the nail on the head. We’ve seen the same explosion in image size and rebuild complexity, especially with AI/ML workloads where Python + CUDA + random pip wheels + system libs = image bloat and massive rebuilds.

With the Kubernetes shim, you can run the hash-pinned environments without building or pulling an image at all. It starts the pod with a stub, then activates the exact runtime from a node-local store.