When referring to an image, an artifact, a registry, a tag, what exactly is the reference? Do we mean:

• web
• web:v1.0
• namesapce/web:v1.0
• org.example.com/namespace/web:v1.0

For the sake of clarity of communications, there are several elements that make up an artifact or image name, and they are fairly important when we think about artifacts moving from one registry to another. See Choosing a Docker ContainerRegistry for more context

Should we really refer to an image, tied to a specific location? As humans, would we really say the fully qualified name, or would we use shorthand references? And what terminology would, or should we use? There are several terms we use interchangeably, which I’ll call out their meanings:

• Image / Artifact
• Registry
• Unique Registry
• Namespace
• Repo (repository)
• Tag

Images & Artifacts

The first thing you may notice is I reference Images and Artifacts interchangeably. It turns out the infrastructure we use to store…