---

title: “context create” description: “The context create command description and usage” keywords: “context, create”

context create

Usage:  docker context create [OPTIONS] CONTEXT

Create a context

Docker endpoint config:

NAME                DESCRIPTION
from                Copy Docker endpoint configuration from an existing context
host                Docker endpoint on which to connect
ca                  Trust certs signed only by this CA
cert                Path to TLS certificate file
key                 Path to TLS key file
skip-tls-verify     Skip TLS certificate validation

Kubernetes endpoint config:

NAME                 DESCRIPTION
from                 Copy Kubernetes endpoint configuration from an existing context
config-file          Path to a Kubernetes config file
context-override     Overrides the context set in the kubernetes config file
namespace-override   Overrides the namespace set in the kubernetes config file

Example:

$ docker context create my-context \
      --description "some description" \
      --docker "host=tcp://myserver:2376,ca=~/ca-file,cert=~/cert-file,key=~/key-file"

Options:
      --default-stack-orchestrator string   Default orchestrator for
                                            stack operations to use with
                                            this context
                                            (swarm|kubernetes|all)
      --description string                  Description of the context
      --docker stringToString               set the docker endpoint
                                            (default [])
      --kubernetes stringToString           set the kubernetes endpoint
                                            (default [])
      --from string                         Create the context from an existing context

Description

Creates a new context. This allows you to quickly switch the cli configuration to connect to different clusters or single nodes.

Examples

Create a context with a docker and kubernetes endpoint

To create a context from scratch provide the docker and, if required, kubernetes options. The example below creates the context my-context with a docker endpoint of /var/run/docker.sock and a kubernetes configuration sourced from the file /home/me/my-kube-config:

$ docker context create \
    --docker host=unix:///var/run/docker.sock \
    --kubernetes config-file=/home/me/my-kube-config \
    my-context 

Create a context based on an existing context

Use the --from=<context-name> option to create a new context from an existing context. The example below creates a new context named my-context from the existing context existing-context:

$ docker context create --from existing-context my-context 

If the --from option is not set, the context is created from the current context:

$ docker context create my-context

This can be used to create a context out of an existing DOCKER_HOST based script:

$ source my-setup-script.sh
$ docker context create my-context

To source only the docker endpoint configuration from an existing context use the --docker from=<context-name> option. The example below creates a new context named my-context using the docker endpoint configuration from the existing context existing-context and a kubernetes configuration sourced from the file /home/me/my-kube-config:

$ docker context create \
    --docker from=existing-context \
    --kubernetes config-file=/home/me/my-kube-config \
    my-context

To source only the kubernetes configuration from an existing context use the --kubernetes from=<context-name> option. The example below creates a new context named my-context using the kuberentes configuration from the existing context existing-context and a docker endpoint of /var/run/docker.sock:

$ docker context create \
    --docker host=unix:///var/run/docker.sock \
    --kubernetes from=existing-context \
    my-context

Docker and Kubernetes endpoints configurations, as well as default stack orchestrator and description can be modified with docker context update.

Refer to the docker context update reference for details.