Score is a platform-agnostic workload specification that enables developers to describe cloud-native application configuration in a vendor-neutral way.
Score addresses the problem of configuration inconsistency across environments and the cognitive burden of learning platform-specific syntax for tools like Docker Compose and Kubernetes. It works by letting developers declare workload requirements—such as databases and event queues—in a single specification file using familiar concepts, without committing to any particular platform or tool. The specification separates environment-agnostic configuration from environment-specific details, allowing the same Score file to be used across different target platforms through reference implementations that translate it into platform-specific formats like docker-compose.yaml or Kubernetes manifests.
Developers should adopt Score if they want to write workload configuration once and deploy it consistently across multiple environments without rewriting for each platform. It suits teams working with Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, or other container orchestration tools who want to reduce the complexity developers face when defining runtime requirements. The specification is intentionally tightly scoped to workload-level properties rather than attempting to replace platform-specific tools entirely, making it a bridge between developer intent and platform capabilities rather than a comprehensive orchestration solution.
The project maintains a reference specification schema alongside two actively maintained reference implementations: score-compose for Docker Compose output and score-k8s for Kubernetes manifests. The repository structure centers on the specification itself as the primary artifact, with implementation guidance and documentation supporting adoption by teams building custom implementations for their own platforms.
