Addons inside image or as a volume

[jmferrerqualtio]

Hi!

I was wondering if, in a Kubernetes deployment, Odoo add-ons need to be in a separate volume or if it's better to add them within the Odoo image.

I have built this dockerfile that clones all modules in CUSTOM_ADDONS and copy them to /mnt/extra-addons:

FROM odoo:18.0-20251121 as base

# Odoo already uses /mnt/extra-addons in its default addons_path.
# We just ensure the directory exists.
RUN mkdir -p /mnt/extra-addons

# Define the environment variable with the repositories to clone.
# Format: <user>/<repository>
ENV CUSTOM_ADDONS oca/ai \
                  oca/stock-logistics-workflow \
                  oca/storage

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# BUILD STAGE: Install Git and Clone Repositories
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM base as builder

# Install 'git'
USER root
RUN apt-get update \
    && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends git \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
USER odoo
# Get the Odoo branch (e.g., 18.0) from the base image version
ARG ODOO_VERSION=18.0 

# Script logic:
# 1. Loop through each repo in CUSTOM_ADDONS.
# 2. Clone into a temp folder.
# 3. Iterate through subdirectories of the cloned repo.
# 4. If a subdirectory contains '__manifest__.py', it is a valid module -> Copy to /mnt/extra-addons.
# 5. Clean up temp files.
RUN cd /tmp/; \
    for repo in $CUSTOM_ADDONS; do \
        repo_name=$(basename $repo); \
        echo "--- Processing repository: $repo_name ---"; \
        \
        # 1 & 2. Clone the repository
        git clone --depth 1 -b ${ODOO_VERSION} https://github.com/${repo}.git $repo_name; \
        \
        # 3. Iterate through the cloned directory to find actual modules
        for module_path in $repo_name/*; do \
            if [ -d "$module_path" ] && [ -f "$module_path/__manifest__.py" ]; then \
                module_dir_name=$(basename $module_path); \
                echo "Found valid module: $module_dir_name. Copying to /mnt/extra-addons..."; \
                cp -r "$module_path" /mnt/extra-addons/; \
            fi; \
        done; \
        \
        # 5. Clean up the cloned repo to save space in the intermediate layer (optional but good)
        rm -rf $repo_name; \
    done

# Copy Your Local Custom Modules (if you have them in a local folder)
# Assumes you have a folder named 'my_local_modules' next to the Dockerfile
# COPY ./my_local_modules /mnt/extra-addons/my_local_modules

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# FINAL STAGE: Clean production image
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM base

# Copy all addons (OCA and custom) from the 'builder' stage
# to the final directory (/mnt/extra-addons)
COPY --from=builder /mnt/extra-addons /mnt/extra-addons

Is this the correct way or must I use a volume and copy all modules in an init container?

Have a nice day. :-)

[theangryangel]

Bake them into the container at build time: your container can be tagged representing distinct versions - we actually use timestamp - making it easy to reason about what’s running and roll back. You also minimising the wrong versions being present

you can also do build time validation on versions etc if you wanted to

if you use a volume I cannot see much benefit in a container let alone kubernetes frankly. Seems like a half in half out solution