Techniques for managing multi-container builds are described herein. A software build task description specifies a build environment and the build environment specifies a set of parameters for building a version of a software object. A container is instantiated that corresponds to the build environment and build commands are sent to the container. As the container completes the build command, it sends a response that is used to determine a second command to send to the container. A status of the software build task is provided based at least in part on the response.