Problem

ECS FARGATE does not cache images as they are pulled. This means it must re-pull the image from GHCR for each task that is started during a deployment. The time it takes to pull an image from GHCR has a significant impact on the total length of our deployments, especially for the API which deploys tasks one by one rather than simultaneously as it does for the frontend.

Description

Read the documentation for zstd compression here: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/containers/reducing-aws-fargate-startup-times-with-zstd-compressed-container-images/

Update our docker builds to use zstd compression.

Docker for macOS apparently does not yet support zstd compression. Implementing this issue would remove the ability for maintainers on macOS to run deployed images locally. This could cause issues with debugging. This issue might not be possible to responsibly implement until after Docker for macOS supports zstd.