perlessentials/perl-essentials repository overview

⁠perl-essentials

perl-essentials extends the official Perl images with a curated, production-oriented CPAN stack commonly required for automation, data processing, reporting, database access, testing, profiling, and web integrations.

Source and complete documentation: https://github.com/M-M-M-M/perl-essentials⁠

⁠Included module families

• Database: DBI, DBD::Pg, DBD::SQLite
• JSON: JSON, JSON::SIMD, JSON::XS, Cpanel::JSON::XS, JSON::MaybeXS
• XML: XML::LibXML, XML::Hash, XML::XML2JSON
• HTTP/Web: LWP::UserAgent, REST::Client, HTTP::Cookies
• Spreadsheet: Excel::Writer::XLSX, Spreadsheet::XLSX
• Testing: Test::More, Test::MockModule
• Quality: Perl::Critic, Perl::Tidy
• Profiling: Devel::NYTProf
• Concurrency: threads, threads::shared, Thread::Queue
• Date/Time: DateTime, Date::Calc

⁠Usage examples

Published images run by default as the non-root perl user with UID/GID 1000:1000. For writable host bind mounts, pass --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" to preserve host ownership. Use --user root only for explicit administrative operations.

Bind mounts retain numeric host ownership. A host UID/GID may therefore be displayed under a different name inside the container while remaining correct on the host; no chown is needed. The global Zsh configuration applies to all users, and a minimal personal .zshrc prevents the new-user assistant without overwriting custom settings.

Codex uses Bubblewrap for its Linux sandbox. Ubuntu 24.04 hosts may require the distribution bwrap-userns-restrict AppArmor profile before the sandbox can configure non-root user and network namespaces. Local linux/amd64 validation on Apple Silicon Docker Desktop runs through emulation; a Codex SeccompInstall/Invalid argument sandbox failure there is handled as a documented local smoke-test limitation, while native CI keeps the sandbox validation strict.

docker run --rm perlessentials/perl-essentials:5.45 \
  perl -MDBI -MJSON -e 'print "ready\n"'

docker run --rm -it --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
  -v "$PWD":/work \
  perlessentials/perl-essentials:5.45

docker run --rm -it --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
  -v "$PWD":/work \
  -v "$PWD/codex-auth":/codex \
  perlessentials/perl-essentials:codex zsh -l

docker run --rm perlessentials/perl-essentials:5.26 perl -e 'print "$^V\n"'

⁠Perl development tools

The image includes perltidy, perlcritic, prove, cpanm, rg, parallel, hyperfine, and the GNU-prefixed commands gcat, gfind, ggrep, and gsed.

Perl::Tidy uses /etc/perltidyrc by default. A project-local .perltidyrc under /work takes precedence. Use -pro=/work/custom.perltidyrc to select a specific profile, or -npro to ignore all profiles.

Preview formatting without modifying the mounted file:

docker run --rm --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" -v "$PWD":/work \
  perlessentials/perl-essentials:5.45 \
  perltidy -st -se /work/path/to/script.pl

Format in place without creating a backup, using the host user to preserve file ownership:

docker run --rm --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" -v "$PWD":/work \
  perlessentials/perl-essentials:5.45 \
  perltidy -b -bext='/' /work/path/to/script.pl

⁠Available targets

⁠Codex target

A codex target is also available, based on the Perl 5.44.0 image:

The Perl bases above are the configured targets. Inspection of the published v0.11.0-codex and v0.11.0-codex-dev images found that both actually run Perl 5.45.4 and share a digest. The mutable codex alias has since been repaired and verified on both architectures with Perl 5.44.0; the historical release tags remain unchanged.

⁠Included Perl modules

Versions captured on 2026-11-03 19:15:38 (UTC).

This inventory was captured from the default image at the timestamp above. Module versions may differ between publication runs. For an exact image, see /opt/perl-essentials/module-versions.txt.

Stable aliases latest and codex follow the latest configured stable Perl (currently 5.44.0). Development aliases dev and codex-dev follow the configured development Perl (currently 5.45.4).