diff --git a/build-containers.py b/build-containers.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ec3a31a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/build-containers.py
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# Builds or pulls containers for the system components
+
+# env vars:
+# VULCANIZE_REPO_BASE_DIR defaults to ~/vulcanize
+
+# TODO: display the available list of containers; allow re-build of either all or specific containers
+
+import os
+import sys
+import argparse
+from decouple import config
+import subprocess
+
+parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+    description="build the set of containers required for a complete stack",
+    epilog="Config provided either in .env or settings.ini or env vars: VULCANIZE_REPO_BASE_DIR (defaults to ~/vulcanize)"
+    )
+parser.add_argument("--verbose", action="store_true", help="increase output verbosity")
+parser.add_argument("--quiet", action="store_true", help="don\'t print informational output")
+parser.add_argument("--check-only", action="store_true", help="looks at what\'s already there and checks if it looks good")
+parser.add_argument("--dry-run", action="store_true", help="don\'t do anything, just print the commands that would be executed")
+
+args = parser.parse_args()
+print(args)
+
+verbose = args.verbose
+quiet = args.quiet
+
+dev_root_path = os.path.expanduser(config("VULCANIZE_REPO_BASE_DIR", default="~/vulcanize"))
+
+if not args.quiet:
+    print(f'Dev Root is: {dev_root_path}')
+
+if not os.path.isdir(dev_root_path):
+    print(f'Dev root directory doesn\'t exist, creating')
+
+with open("container-image-list.txt") as container_list_file:
+    containers = container_list_file.read().splitlines()
+
+if verbose:
+    print(f'Containers: {containers}')
+
+def process_container(container):
+    if not quiet:
+        print(f"Building: {container}")
+    build_script_filename = os.path.join("container-build",container.replace("/","-"),"build.sh")
+    if verbose:
+        print(f"Script: {build_script_filename}")
+    if not os.path.exists(build_script_filename):
+        print(f"Error, script: {build_script_filename} doesn't exist")
+        sys.exit(1)
+    if not args.dry_run:
+        # We need to export VULCANIZE_REPO_BASE_DIR
+        build_result = subprocess.run(build_script_filename, shell=True, env={'VULCANIZE_REPO_BASE_DIR':dev_root_path})
+        print(f"Result is: {build_result}")
+
+for container in containers:
+    process_container(container)
+
+
+