Container Runtime Interface - CI/CD Glossary Definition
The Container Runtime Interface (CRI) is the standard API Kubernetes uses to talk to a container runtime, so runtimes like containerd and CRI-O are interchangeable behind the kubelet.
Why it exists
CRI decoupled Kubernetes from Docker specifically. Since Kubernetes 1.24 the Docker shim was removed, and clusters (including CI runner clusters) use CRI-compatible runtimes such as containerd directly.
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