**Offer Name**: Flatcar Container Linux
**Search Results Summary**: A container-native OS with automatic updates, a read-only filesystem, and zero bloat - Flatcar is designed to scale your infrastructure with security and simplicity.
**Short Description**:
Flatcar Container Linux is a minimal, immutable, and secure operating system designed specifically for container workloads. It delivers automatic updates, a read-only `/usr/` filesystem, and zero configuration drift—ideal for scalable, production-grade infrastructure.
**Description**:
Imagine an OS that works as hard as you do - streamlining your infrastructure, reducing costs, minimizing operational overhead, and securing your workloads. Flatcar is engineered for teams that value efficiency, resilience, and peace of mind.

**Flatcar Container Linux**, a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) incubating project, is a secure, minimal, and an operating system built from the ground up to run container workloads at scale. It fully embraces the container paradigm - delivering only what’s needed to run containers and nothing more.

- **Immutable Infrastructure**
Your infrastructure is immutable - your OS should be too. Flatcar features a read-only `/usr` filesystem, drastically reducing the attack surface and ensuring consistent, repeatable deployments.
- **Minimal & Focused**
With containers packaging all dependencies, there's no need for a package manager. Flatcar eliminates OS bloat and configuration drift, offering only the essentials needed to run containers.
- **Effortless, Automated Updates**
Flatcar provides an atomic, hands-free updates with rollback support - keeping your systems secure without manual intervention.
- **Designed to Scale**
Built with tools to manage large-scale, global infrastructure and manage / update polices, versions and group instances with ease.
- **Reduced Complexity**
With no traditional package manager and fewer moving parts, Flatcar simplifies your base OS while containers handle the rest.
- **Modular extensions with sysext**
Supports systemd-sysext aka system extensions to layer in additional functionality without modifying the base OS.

Launch Flatcar on Azure for a lean, secure, and production-grade OS purpose - built for containers and modern infrastructure.

**Learn More**
Visit the our [website](https://www.flatcar.org/) to explore what makes Flatcar different from other traditional OSes and how it fits into your infrastructure. For setup guides, configuration help, and advanced usage, refer to the [official documentation](https://www.flatcar.org/docs/).
Stay up-to-date on our latest chances & improvements through our [releases](https://www.flatcar.org/releases/) page.
Found a bug or want to request a feature? [File an issue](https://github.com/flatcar/Flatcar/issues/new/choose) or explore the open discussions on our [issue tracker](https://github.com/flatcar/Flatcar/issues) and [discussions](https://github.com/flatcar/Flatcar/discussions) page.

**Contribute & Communicate**
Connect with the Flatcar community on [Matrix](https://app.element.io/#/room/#flatcar:matrix.org), or join the conversation in the Kubernetes [#flatcar Slack channel](https://kubernetes.slack.com/archives/C03GQ8B5XNJ).
You can also follow project news and updates on social media: [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/flatcar.org), [Mastodon](https://hachyderm.io/@flatcar), [X](https://twitter.com/flatcar)

⚠️ note: similar approach would be for Beta, Stable, LTS
**Plan Name**: Flatcar Container Linux (Alpha)
**Plan Summary**: A container-native OS with automatic updates, a read-only file-system, and zero bloat - Flatcar is designed to scale your infrastructure with security and simplicity.
**Plan description**:
This plan follows the **Alpha channel**, where new features and updates are introduced. We recommend using it in pre-production environments to detect potential issues early before they progress to the Beta and Stable channels.

**Links**:
Running Flatcar Container Linux on Microsoft Azure https://www.flatcar.org/docs/latest/installing/cloud/azure/
Immutable Turtles All the Way Down Image Based Kubernetes to power In Place Updates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb37wNKcZdM
Using a prebuilt Flatcar Image on Azure https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/flatcar-create-upload-vhd
Flatcar Container Linux Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZlGiLsKp0

**Plan License**: (link it via a link on flatcar website that would have the following content)
Copyright 2025 The Flatcar Container Maintainers

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

**Privacy Policy** https://www.flatcar.org/privacy-policy