Deploying Application Containers of a Distributed Service

Techniques are disclosed relating to deploying application containers. A computer system may receive a request to deploy an application container onto resources of a target environment such that program code of the application container is executed. The deployment of the application container may be carried out in a mode in which the computer system does not allocate resources for the application container. The computer system may receive a request to deploy a placeholder container in the target environment. The deployment of the placeholder container may be carried out in a different mode in which the computer system allocates resources for the placeholder container. The computer system may cause an allocation of additional resources to the target environment on which to execute program code of the placeholder container. In response to the additional resources being allocated, the computer system may deploy the application container onto the additional resources for execution.