Which environments. Only a Docker or Podman environment provisioned from a release can be frozen. A native or Apptainer environment has no image to build on, and a development environment’s compiler lives outside it. The image is built by the environment’s own engine, on the machine that holds the environment, and freezing changes nothing in the environment.

Contents. The image is the environment’s image with:

An environment that is missing any of these, for instance because it was never fully built, is refused with the missing part named.

What is refused. Each program travels as the directory mim install copied, so freezing inspects them first. Tool state that nothing reads at run time — version-control directories, caches, virtual environments, build output — is refused. A program over 100 MB, a file over 50 MB, or an environment with no programs at all must be confirmed by the user; without a terminal to ask, confirmation is refusal. A force option answers all of these.

Running the image. The default command starts the front end (Serving) listening on every interface on port 8080. Inside a container that is the only way a published port can reach it, so the image does not decide who can reach it: whoever runs it does, with the port mapping and the network. A token, if given at run time in MORLOC_MCP_TOKEN, is required exactly as on any server. Eval stays locked without a token unless MORLOC_EVAL_ALLOW_NO_AUTH is set. An environment with no views gives an image with no default command; its programs run when named.

Morloc moves data between pools through shared memory, which container engines limit by default; the image records the size the environment used in a label so that the operator can grant it.

Labels. Once it leaves the manager nothing tracks the image, so it describes itself: the Morloc version, the source environment, the programs, each adapter’s modules, whether eval is on, and the suggested shared-memory size.

Slim images. A slim image omits what only building needs: compilers, the solver, the Morloc compiler, the runtime’s headers and source, and the build-only packages, found by walking the solved packages' dependencies from the requested ones without passing through a build tool. It keeps every interpreter and library the programs load. Since eval compiles code, an environment with eval enabled cannot be frozen slim. After a slim image is built, every program is started inside it and every runtime library’s links are resolved, so a missing library is found at freeze time rather than in production.