AWS ECR Lifecycle Policy Builder

About This Tool

The ECR Lifecycle Policy Builder helps you create lifecycle policies for Amazon Elastic Container Registry repositories. ECR lifecycle policies automatically clean up old or unused container images based on rules you define, such as image age, count, or tag status. This tool provides a visual interface for building these rules with proper priority ordering and tag pattern matching, then generates the JSON policy you can apply to your repository.

When to Use This Tool

• •Build lifecycle rules to automatically delete untagged images older than a specified number of days to reclaim storage.
• •Create policies that keep only the most recent N images per tag prefix, ensuring you retain recent releases while cleaning up old builds.
• •Configure rules that prioritize tagged production images over development or CI images for cleanup ordering.
• •Generate lifecycle policies for repositories across multiple environments with consistent image retention standards.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do ECR lifecycle policy rules interact when there are multiple rules?

Rules are evaluated in priority order (lowest number first). Each image is evaluated against rules sequentially, and the first matching rule determines its fate. Higher priority rules take precedence, so put your most important retention rules at the lowest priority numbers.

Can lifecycle policies accidentally delete images that are in use?

Lifecycle policies evaluate based on image age and count, not active usage. Images currently deployed by ECS or EKS could be deleted if they match a cleanup rule. Use tag-based rules carefully and ensure actively deployed image tags are excluded from cleanup patterns.

Does this tool apply the policy to my ECR repository?

No. The tool generates the lifecycle policy JSON in your browser. You apply it to your ECR repository via the AWS Console, CLI, or infrastructure-as-code tools like CloudFormation or Terraform.