beginnerImages, Layers, Caching & Container Lifecycle

How would you reduce the size of a Docker image?

Use a smaller/minimal base image (alpine, distroless), combine RUN instructions to avoid layer bloat, clean up package manager caches within the same RUN that installed them, use multi-stage builds to exclude build tools from the final image, and use .dockerignore to keep unrelated files out of the build context entirely.

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