Why is s2i build --as-dockerfile experimental?

[johnmcollier]

Hey! I have a question regarding the --as-dockerfile flag on s2i build. The help for it says it's experimental:

      --as-dockerfile string             EXPERIMENTAL: Output a Dockerfile to this path instead of building a new image

I'm wondering what makes it experimental compared to just s2i build?

[bparees]

Limited ability to test and guarantee fidelity with the "normal" s2i image generation flow, potentially a few missing behaviors around image metadata management, and a general sense that we wanted to give it some soak time ("here be dragons") before declaring it fully supported.

We have a couple new folks who are going to be contributing to s2i soon and one of their goals is to invest more in the "--as-dockerfile" flow, as part of that hopefully we can move it out of experimental.

In the meantime, you should feel free to use it and open issues if you run into any.

[bparees]

@johnmcollier here's an example of the kind of issues that still exist when using --as-dockerfile:

#973