Dependencies

The daemon's go.mod pulls in 100+ modules. The list below highlights the ones with the most architectural weight — what they are and what code in the repo touches them.

Container runtime

Module	Used by
github.com/containerd/containerd/v2	The containerd Go client. See Container runtime.
github.com/containerd/containerd/api	Containerd protobuf API.
github.com/containerd/cgroups/v3	Cgroup v1/v2 abstractions.
github.com/containerd/continuity	Filesystem checksums and tar helpers.
github.com/containerd/errdefs	Standard error predicates.
github.com/containerd/log	Structured logging facade.
github.com/containerd/nri	Node Resource Interface.
github.com/containerd/platforms	OCI platform string parser/matcher.
github.com/containerd/typeurl/v2	Protobuf type-URL helpers used in NRI/runtime.
github.com/containerd/fifo	UNIX FIFOs (used for stdio).

OCI runtimes

The daemon doesn't import runc directly; it talks to it via containerd. But several Moby-org submodules surface OCI primitives:

Module	Role
github.com/moby/sys/{mount,mountinfo,signal,user,userns,reexec,sequential,symlink,atomicwriter}	Low-level OS helpers.
github.com/moby/profiles/seccomp	Default seccomp profile generator.
github.com/moby/profiles/apparmor	Default AppArmor profile.
github.com/moby/policy-helpers	Image policy helpers used by Daemon.
github.com/moby/term	Terminal mode plumbing for attach/exec.

Networking

Module	Role
github.com/hashicorp/memberlist	Gossip layer for networkdb.
github.com/hashicorp/serf	Higher-level cluster events on top of memberlist.
github.com/hashicorp/go-memdb	In-memory radix-tree DB used by containersReplica.
github.com/hashicorp/go-immutable-radix/v2	Immutable radix tree (memdb's underlying structure).
github.com/miekg/dns	The embedded DNS resolver in libnetwork.
github.com/moby/ipvs	IPVS netlink helpers used by overlay/swarm.
github.com/ishidawataru/sctp	SCTP socket support in docker-proxy.
github.com/godbus/dbus/v5	dbus client for firewalld/networkd interaction.

Build & image

Module	Role
github.com/moby/buildkit	The BuildKit library. See Builder.
github.com/moby/docker-image-spec	Image config spec types.
github.com/moby/go-archive	Tar archive helpers used by builder/distribution.
github.com/distribution/reference	OCI reference parsing.
github.com/docker/distribution	Legacy registry client (used by Distribution).
github.com/docker/go-connections	TLS, NAT, sockets helpers.
github.com/docker/go-units	Human-readable size/duration parsing.
github.com/docker/go-events	Event channels with backoff.

Swarm

Module	Role
github.com/moby/swarmkit/v2	The orchestrator and agent libraries.

Logging plugins

fluentd, gcp logging, aws cloudwatchlogs, Graylog gelf, RackSec/srslog, Microsoft go-winio — each pulled in for one log driver.

HTTP & RPC

Module	Role
github.com/gorilla/mux	Server-side routing in daemon/server.
google.golang.org/grpc	gRPC for containerd/NRI/BuildKit/swarmkit.
go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/...	OTel HTTP/gRPC instrumentation.
go.etcd.io/bbolt	Embedded KV store used by libnetwork's datastore.

Other notable

Module	Role
github.com/cloudflare/cfssl	Internal CA helpers (used by SwarmKit and tests).
github.com/cpuguy83/tar2go	In-memory tar -> Go file system bridge.
github.com/Microsoft/hcsshim	Windows Host Compute Service shim.
github.com/google/uuid	UUID generation.
dario.cat/mergo	Recursive struct merging (config reload).
golang.org/x/sync/{semaphore,errgroup,singleflight}	Concurrency primitives (and resenje.org/singleflight).
gotest.tools/v3	Test assertions and fixtures.

Vendoring

Everything is vendored under vendor/. make validate-vendor ensures consistency; make vendor refreshes. The go.mod is the canonical list — see it for exact versions.