Docker Registry Cleanup & Garbage Collection Automation

This n8n workflow provides a robust solution for maintaining Docker registries by automatically identifying and removing outdated image tags. It starts by fetching the catalog of repositories, retrieves all tags for each image, sorts them by recency, and deletes all but the most recent 10 tags (always preserving 'latest'). Following deletions, it executes registry garbage collection through SSH and dispatches email notifications summarizing the operation, including any errors or excused deletions.

Key benefits include significant storage space savings, improved registry performance by reducing bloat, and enforcement of customizable retention policies without manual intervention. The automation minimizes human error, supports scheduled execution, and handles failures gracefully with detailed reporting, making it ideal for production environments.

Use cases span DevOps teams managing private registries in CI/CD pipelines, enterprises with high-volume image pushes, or any setup where disk space and organization are critical. Customize retention (e.g., slice(0,10)), trigger frequency, and email templates easily. Prerequisites include Docker v2 API credentials, SSH access for GC, and SMTP setup; test DELETE operations in staging first.