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Gordon

Table of contents
Requires: Docker Desktop 4.74.0 or later

Gordon is an AI-powered assistant that takes action on your Docker workflows. It analyzes your environment, proposes solutions, and executes commands with your permission.

What Gordon does

Gordon takes action to help you with Docker tasks:

  • Explains Docker concepts and commands
  • Searches Docker documentation and web resources for solutions
  • Writes and modifies Dockerfiles following best practices
  • Debugs container failures by reading logs and proposing fixes
  • Manages containers, images, volumes, and networks

Gordon proposes every action before executing. You approve what it does.

Where to use Gordon

Gordon is available on four surfaces:

  • Open the Gordon view from the Docker Desktop sidebar to run Docker commands with your approval. See Using Gordon in Docker Desktop.
  • Run docker ai in the terminal to use the full assistant from the command line. See Using Gordon via CLI.
  • Select the Gordon icon on any repository page at hub.docker.com to ask about a repository's images, tags, and metadata. Hand off to Docker Desktop to take action.
  • Select the Gordon icon on any page at docs-docker.esdocu.com to ask Docker questions.

Docker Desktop and the CLI count against your Gordon plan's usage limits. Gordon on Docker Hub and docs-docker.esdocu.com is free and does not require a Docker account or a Docker Desktop install. It has its own shared public usage limit and does not access your Docker environment.

Get started

Prerequisites

Before you begin:

  • Docker Desktop 4.74 or later
  • Sign in to your Docker account
Note

Gordon is enabled by default for signed-in Docker users. If your account belongs to an organization with a Business subscription, access requires two additional steps:

  1. Contact Docker Support to activate Gordon for your organization. Docker will confirm when activation is complete.
  2. Once confirmed, an organization administrator must set Enable Gordon to Enabled or Always enabled in the Admin Console. Do not leave the setting at its default value, as this will not activate Gordon organization-wide.

Quick start

  1. Open Docker Desktop.

  2. Select Gordon in the sidebar.

  3. Select your project directory.

  4. Type a question: "What containers are running?"

    Gordon running in Docker Desktop

  5. Review Gordon's proposed actions and approve.

  1. Open your terminal and run:

    $ docker ai

    This opens the Terminal User Interface (TUI) for Gordon.

  2. Type a question: "what containers are running?" and press Enter.

    Gordon running in the terminal

  3. Review Gordon's proposed actions and approve by typing y.

Permissions

By default, Gordon asks for approval before executing actions. You can approve individual actions or allow all actions for the current session.

Gordon permission request

Permissions reset for each session. To configure default permissions or enable auto-approve mode, see Permissions.

Try these examples

Container inspection:

$ docker ai "show me logs from my nginx container"

Dockerfile review:

$ docker ai "review my Dockerfile for best practices"

Image management:

$ docker ai "list my local images and their sizes"