First Commands

Now that you understand how EMB discovers components, let’s learn the essential commands.

Listing Components

You’ve already seen emb components:

emb components

 COMPONENT  NAME  ID  CREATED  STATUS
--------------------------------------
 api

Listing Resources

Resources are things EMB can build. List them with:

emb resources

 ID         NAME   TYPE          PUBLISHABLE  REFERENCE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 api:image  image  docker/image               hello-world/api:latest

Each resource has:

• ID: Unique identifier (component:resource)
• NAME: The resource name within the component
• TYPE: The resource type (e.g., docker/image)
• REFERENCE: The full image reference with tag

Building Resources

Build all resources with:

emb resources build

Or build a specific component:

emb resources build api

EMB will:

1. Check if the image needs rebuilding
2. Run docker build with the appropriate tags
3. Cache the result to avoid unnecessary rebuilds

Viewing Images

After building, see your images:

emb images

This shows all Docker images managed by EMB for your project.

Getting Help

Every command has built-in help:

emb --help | head -20

A replacement for our Makefile-for-monorepos

VERSION
  @enspirit/emb/0.27.0 darwin-x64 node-v22.18.0

USAGE
  $ emb [COMMAND]

TOPICS
  components  List & build components resources
  config      It's all about config
  containers  List, delete, prune docker images
  images      List, delete, prune docker containers
  kubernetes  Manage project instances on kubernetes
  logs        Get service logs.
  resources   List, clean, build resources
  secrets     List all secret references in the configuration.
  tasks       List and run tasks

COMMANDS

For help on a specific command:

emb resources --help
emb resources build --help

Summary

You’ve learned the basics of EMB:

• .emb.yml - The project configuration file
• autodocker plugin - Automatically discovers components
• emb components - List discovered components
• emb resources - List buildable resources
• emb resources build - Build Docker images

Next Tutorial

Ready to learn more? Continue to Fullstack App to explore:

• Multiple components
• Environment variables
• Tasks
• Docker Compose integration