---
title: "Releasing Loki Build Image | Grafana Loki documentation"
description: "Releasing Loki Build Image"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Releasing Loki Build Image

The [`loki-build-image`](https://github.com/grafana/loki/blob/main/loki-build-image) is the Docker image used to run tests and build Grafana Loki binaries in CI.

The build and publish process of the image is triggered upon a merge to `main` if any changes were made in the folder `./loki-build-image/`.

**To build and use the `loki-build-image`:**

## Step 1

1. create a branch with the desired changes to the Dockerfile
2. update the version tag of the `loki-build-image` pipeline defined in `.drone/drone.jsonnet` (search for `pipeline('loki-build-image')`) to a new version number (try to follow semver)
3. run `DRONE_SERVER=https://drone.grafana.net/ DRONE_TOKEN=<token> make drone` and commit the changes to the same branch
   
   1. the `<token>` is your personal drone token, which can be found by navigating to [https://drone.grafana.net/account](https://drone.grafana.net/account).
4. create a PR
5. once approved and merged to `main`, the image with the new version is built and published
   
   - **Note:** keep an eye on [https://drone.grafana.net/grafana/loki](https://drone.grafana.net/grafana/loki) for the build after merging ([example](https://drone.grafana.net/grafana/loki/17760/1/2))

## Step 2

1. create a branch
2. update the `BUILD_IMAGE_VERSION` variable in the `Makefile`
3. run `loki-build-image/version-updater.sh <new-version>` to update all the references
4. run `DRONE_SERVER=https://drone.grafana.net/ DRONE_TOKEN=<token> make drone` to update the Drone config to use the new build image
5. create a new PR