Updating a lifecycle policy

Written by

Yandex Cloud

Improved by

Danila N.

Updated at August 10, 2026

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Examples

After you create a lifecycle policy, you can edit its rules as well as its status, name, or description.

Management console

CLI

Terraform

API

In the management console, select the folder with the registry.
Navigate to Container Registry.
Select the registry and click the row with its name.
Select the repository and click the row with its name.
In the left-hand panel, click Lifecycle.
In the lifecycle policy row, click and select Edit.
Edit the lifecycle policy settings:
- Name.
- Description.
- Status.
- Under Lifecycle policy rules, update the rule settings:
  - Tag regexp: Docker image tag for filtering. Java regular expressions are supported. For example, the test.* regular expression retrieves all images with tags starting with test.
  - Untagged: Flag to apply the rule to untagged Docker images.
  - Expire period, in days: Time after which the lifecycle policy may apply to the Docker image.
  - Retained top: Number of Docker images that will not be deleted even if they match the rule.
  - Description.
Click Save.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI yet, install and initialize it.

See the description of the CLI command for updating policy settings:
```
yc container repository lifecycle-policy update --help
```
Update the policy settings, e.g., rename the policy:
```
yc container repository lifecycle-policy update <policy_ID> \
   --new-name=new-policy
```
To find out the policy ID, get a list of lifecycle policies in the repository or registry.

If you do not have Terraform yet, install it and configure the Yandex Cloud provider.

To manage infrastructure using Terraform under a service account or user accounts (a Yandex account, a federated account, or a local user), authenticate using the appropriate method.

Open the configuration file and edit the section describing the policy:

resource "yandex_container_repository_lifecycle_policy" "my_lifecycle_policy" {
  name          = "best-policy"
  status        = "active"
  repository_id = "crpfvi6o4ra7********"

  rule {
    description   = "rule for applying policy"
    untagged      = true
    tag_regexp    = ".*"
    retained_top  = 1
    expire_period = "48h"
  }
}

Apply the changes:
1. In the terminal, navigate to the configuration file directory.
2. Make sure the configuration is correct using this command:
```
terraform validate
```
  If the configuration is valid, you will get this message:
```
Success! The configuration is valid.
```
3. Run this command:
```
terraform plan
```
  You will see a list of resources and their properties. No changes will be made at this step. Terraform will show any errors in the configuration.
4. Apply the configuration changes:
```
terraform apply
```
5. Type yes and press Enter to confirm the changes.

This will update the lifecycle policy in the specified repository. You can check the policy update using the management console or this CLI command:

yc container repository lifecycle-policy list --registry-id <registry_ID>

To update a lifecycle policy, use the Update method for the LifecyclePolicyService resource. Specify the policy ID in the lifecycle_policy_id property.

You can get the list of policies using the List method for the LifecyclePolicyService resource.

Examples

Updating lifecycle policy rules

CLI

Create new policy rules and save them to a file named new-rules.json.

Example of the contents of a file with rules, where:
- description: Description of the policy rule.
- tag_regexp: Docker image tag for filtering. Java regular expressions are supported. For example, the test.* regular expression retrieves all images with tags starting with test.
- untagged: Flag to apply the rule to untagged Docker images.
- expire_period: Time after which the lifecycle policy may apply to the Docker image. This parameter comes as a number followed by a unit of measurement: s, m, h, or d (seconds, minutes, hours, or days). expire_period must be a multiple of 24 hours.
- retained_top: Number of Docker images that will not be deleted even if they match the rule.
```
[
  {
    "description": "delete prod Docker images older than 60 days but retain 20 last ones",
    "tag_regexp": "prod",
    "expire_period": "60d",
    "retained_top": 20
  },
  {
    "description": "delete all test Docker images except 10 last ones",
    "tag_regexp": "test.*",
    "retained_top": 10
  },
  {
    "description": "delete all untagged Docker images older than 48 hours",
    "untagged": true,
    "expire_period": "48h"
  }
]
```

Update the current policy rules by running the command with the following parameter:

new-rules: Path to the file with the new policy description.

Alert

When you update the policy, all current rules are overwritten and deleted.

yc container repository lifecycle-policy update crp6lg1868p3******** --new-rules ./new-rules.json

Result:

WARN: All current lifecycle rules will be overwritten. Are you sure?[y/N] y
id: crp6lg1868p3********
name: test-policy
...
  expire_period: 172800s
  tag_regexp: test.*
  untagged: true