Docker and CI/CD · Junior · Question 7 of 75

Why is `COPY` usually preferred over `ADD`?

1ADD was removed from Dockerfiles in recent Docker versions
2COPY is faster because it skips the build cache completely
✓Correct answer: COPY just copies; ADD also fetches URLs and unpacks archives

Explanation

ADD has extra behavior (auto-extracting local tar files, downloading URLs) that can surprise you. Use COPY unless you need exactly that.

Further reading

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