Yeah, it feels like nothing but a little trick. Why would anyone want to actually use this? The exe simply calls docker, it can embed an image into the exe but even then it first calls docker to load the embedded image.
I haven't tried this stuff, but maybe this is something in that direction.
To use it, it's basically just scripts loaded into my shell. So if I do "toolname command args" it will spin up the container, mount the current folder and some config folders some tools expect, forward some ports, then pass the command and args to the container which runs them.
99% of the time it works smooth. The annoying part is if some tool depends on some other tool on the host machine. Like for instance it wants to do some git stuff. I will then have to have git installed and my keys copied in as well for instance.
Tip: you could also forward your ssh agent. I remember it was a bit of a pain in the ass on macos and a windows WSL2 setup, but likely worth it for your setup.
I don't understand this requirement/specification; presumably this use-case will not be satisfied by a shell script, but I don't see how.
What are you wanting from this use-case that can't be done with a shell script?
How's "packing" cli commands into a shell script any different from "packing" CLI commands into a container?
People generally don’t put stuff that works in whatever environment you’re in on the CLI already into contains. Stuff that doesn’t, of course they do.
Having a convenient shell script wrapper to make that not a pain in the ass, while letting all the environment management stuff still work correctly in a container is convenient.
Writing said wrapper each time, however is a pain in the ass.
Generating one, makes it not such a pain in the ass to use.
So then you get convenient CLI usage of something that needs a container to not be a pain in the ass to install/use.
Before zipapp came out I built superzippy to do it. Needed to distribute some python tooling to users in a university where everyone was running Linux in lab computers. Worked perfectly for it.
Probably takes a couple minutes, maybe less if you've got a good fast distro mirror nearby. More if you're trying to explain it to a biologist - love those folks, they do great work, incredible parties, not always at home in the digital domain.