Even if the documentation refers to the "path within the build context to the Dockerfile", it works for a Dockerfile outside the build context if an absolute path is specified.

Using my project tree:

client.images.build(
    path = '/opt/project/src/',
    dockerfile = '/opt/project/dockerfile/Dockerfile.name',
    tag = 'image:version'
)

According to the official documentation https://docker-py.readthedocs.io/en/stable/images.html is used to build an image using docker module of python.

(The question was asked a year ago, but I'll write it for other people's reference :) )

For a basic understanding, you can use this, and I will leave the rest for you to explore.

client.images.build() is the method to build the docker images.
Now it can have several parameters:

Like path (str) – Path to the directory containing the Dockerfile.
You can specify the parameter like this:

client.images.build(path = "<path_to_the_Dockerfile>")

For example, if your Dockerfile is in the current directory you will write client.images.build(path = "./")

This command will build the required image from the Dockerfile you would have in your current directory.

You can check from your terminal if your image has been successfully build by running the command docker image ls (use sudo docker image ls if required), and you will see the image you created at the top of the results in the terminal.

From doc here, you can build an docker image and tag its using "tag" parameter.

tag (str) – A tag to add to the final image

client.images.build(path="./", tag={image_tag})

this code above actually like you are typing docker build -t {image_tag} . command in the docker cli.

then, using the specific image tag to run the docker container.

client.containers.run({image_tag}, name={container_name}, detach=True)

Even when using the Docker API, you still need a Dockerfile. See the Docker API reference for details, but briefly, a POST to the /build endpoint requires as input a tar-archive request body that includes a Dockerfile. The Docker daemon itself is responsible for unpacking the archive (the "build context") and generating the image.

It is possible to produce a Docker image without using Docker, but to do that you need to implement the OCI image spec yourself. See for example Hashicorp Packer or Buildah from the Podman folks.