# Runc

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/runc/  
**Website:** https://opencontainers.org/  
**APIs profiled:** 1

runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers on Linux according to the OCI (Open Container Initiative) specification. It is the reference implementation of the OCI runtime specification and is used as the default low-level container runtime by Docker, containerd, Podman, and other container platforms. runc manages container lifecycle operations including creating, starting, pausing, resuming, killing, and deleting containers. It implements the OCI Runtime Specification and exposes a command-line interface that higher-level runtimes use to manage individual container instances. runc also supports checkpoint/restore via CRIU, rootless containers (no root privileges needed via user namespaces), cgroup v2, seccomp syscall filtering, AppArmor, SELinux, and Intel Memory Protection Extensions. The current stable release line is 1.3.x (runc 1.5.0 expected late April 2026).

## Kin Score — 20.3 / 100 (emerging)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 20.3).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 59.3 |
| Contract Quality | 19.7 |
| Governance | 9.8 |
| Contract Governance | 9.8 |
| Operational Transparency | 21.1 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 11.9 |
| Commercial Clarity | 15.8 |
| Access Clarity | 15.8 |

## Agent readiness — 3.0 (human-only)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | no |
| Agentic Access | no |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | no |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | documented |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## Access

Freemium — onboarding: unknown, pricing: freemium, trial: no (confidence: medium).

## APIs (1)

- **Runc** — runc is a CLI tool for spawning and running containers on Linux according to the OCI (Open Container Initiative) specification. It is the reference implementation of the OCI run...

## Security (1)

- **Runc Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS

## Plans (1)

- **Runc Plans Pricing**

## Tags

Container Runtime, Containers, Linux, OCI, Open-Source, CNCF, Open Container Initiative, Cloud-Native

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/runc/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.