docker login on wslc

Updated 2026-07-27 · 3 min read · wslc public preview

docker login is identical on wslc 2.9.4.0: the command is wslc login, same verb, same binary swap. That does not mean every flag or default carries over unchanged, though -- see the measured difference below before assuming a script ports without edits.

Measured detail. Credentials are stored per Windows user.

The wslc equivalent

# Docker
docker login

# wslc
wslc login

wslc login [<options>] [<server>]

Straight from wslc login --help on wslc 2.9.4.0 .

How we know

Confirmed by reading wslc --help output and, where the behaviour depends on execution rather than argument parsing, by running the command against wslc 2.9.4.0 on a Windows Server 2025 GitHub Actions runner. Unrecognized flags and subcommands fail loudly on wslc -- the parser answers Argument name was not recognized for the current command and exits non-zero -- so a typo is unlikely to be misread as support. The risk runs the other way: a Docker habit that happens to parse (like wslc ps still working) can mask a difference in what the flags underneath it do.

Claims on this site are re-checked by a scheduled workflow that runs the commands again on a fresh Windows Server 2025 runner and fails when a documented behaviour stops matching reality. wslc ships roughly every two weeks during the preview, so treat any page that disagrees with your own machine as the page being stale, and check the version you are on with wslc version.

Where this fits

This is one row of the full Docker to wslc cheat sheet, which covers every command and every flag on a single page. If the workload you are porting uses Docker Compose rather than bare docker invocations, start from Compose key support instead -- docker login rarely appears verbatim in a compose.yaml, and the key-level page maps YAML fields directly to the flags shown above. For a whole script at once, paste it into the command converter and get every line classified in the same pass.

Related guides