Overview

Docker Compose helps to define and share multi-container apps. It defines an application stack in a single file.
Docker Compose automatically creates a network for an application stack.

Example

This docker run command…

docker run -dp 3000:3000 \
  -w /app -v "$(pwd):/app" \
  --network todo-app \
  -e MYSQL_HOST=mysql \
  -e MYSQL_USER=root \
  -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=secret \
  -e MYSQL_DB=todos \
  node:18-alpine \
  sh -c "yarn install && yarn run dev"

…and this one…

docker run -d \
  --network todo-app --network-alias mysql \
  -v todo-mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql \
  -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=secret \
  -e MYSQL_DATABASE=todos \
  mysql:8.0

…are defined in this docker-compose.yml file:

services:
  app:
    image: node:18-alpine
    command: sh -c "yarn install && yarn run dev"
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    working_dir: /app
    volumes:
      - ./:/app
    environment:
      MYSQL_HOST: mysql
      MYSQL_USER: root
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
      MYSQL_DB: todos

  mysql:
    image: mysql:8.0
    volumes:
      - todo-mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql
    environment: 
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: secret
      MYSQL_DATABASE: todos

volumes:
  todo-mysql-data:

Run the application stack:
docker compose up -d

Tear it down:
docker compose down