Package engineapi provides libraries to implement client and server components compatible with the Docker engine. The client package in github.com/docker/engine-api/client implements all necessary requests to implement the official Docker engine cli. Create a new client, then use it to send and receive messages to the Docker engine API: Other programs, like Docker Machine, can set the default Docker engine environment for you. There is a shortcut to use its variables to configure the client: All request arguments are defined as typed structures in the types package. For instance, this is how to get all containers running in the host: