Docker compose: run stack dynamically

I use docker compose every day for my local development needs.

 

During the day I might turn on/off various databases or servers thus I need to do it fast and in a managed way.

Usually your docker-compose files contains the configuration for many containers, network, volumes etc.

stack.yaml

version: '3.5'

services:
  mongo:
    image: mongo
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 27017:27017
    environment:
      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME: username
      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD: password
  mongo-express:
    image: mongo-express
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8081:8081
    environment:
      ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINUSERNAME: username
      ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINPASSWORD: password

This works if you always want the same services up and running.

However it does have a cost on resources, and most of the times you don’t need the full stack.

What you can do in this cases, would be to split them into files and choose what to use.

mongo.yaml

version: '3.5'

services:
  mongo:
    image: mongo
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 27017:27017
    environment:
      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME: username
      MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD: password

express.yaml

version: '3.5'

services:
  mongo-express:
    image: mongo-express
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8081:8081
    environment:
      ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINUSERNAME: username
      ME_CONFIG_MONGODB_ADMINPASSWORD: password

Then choosing what to use becomes very easy, just omit the file

docker-compose -f mongo.yaml -f express.yaml up

You can find more on Compose on the Developers Essential Guide to Docker Compose.