An terbative to removing files or go through contortions to stuff things in a single layer is to use a builder image and copy the generated artefacts into a clean image:

    FROM foo AS builder

    .. build steps

    FROM foo

    COPY --from=builder generated-file target

Unfortunately this messes with caching and causes the builder step to always rebuild if you’re using the default inline cache, until registries start supporting cache manifests.

A tiny bit more on this topic: https://sequoia.makes.software/reducing-docker-image-size-pa...