Docker Compose for Local Development

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 14:00:00 +0300

Getting a new team member productive on day one is a good litmus test for your development setup. If it takes more than a git clone and a single command to get the app running locally, there is room for improvement. Docker Compose makes this achievable.

The Basic Setup

A minimal compose.yaml for a web app with a database:

services:
 app:
 build: .
 ports:
 - "8080:8080"
 volumes:
 - .:/app
 depends_on:
 - db
 environment:
 DATABASE_URL: postgres://dev:dev@db:5432/myapp

 db:
 image: postgres:16
 ports:
 - "5432:5432"
 environment:
 POSTGRES_USER: dev
 POSTGRES_PASSWORD: dev
 POSTGRES_DB: myapp
 volumes:
 - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
 pgdata:

Start everything with:

docker compose up

Adding Services

Most real applications need more than just an app server and a database. Here is how to add Redis for caching:

 redis:
 image: redis:7-alpine
 ports:
 - "6379:6379"

And a worker process:

 worker:
 build: .
 command: ./run-worker
 depends_on:
 - db
 - redis
 environment:
 DATABASE_URL: postgres://dev:dev@db:5432/myapp
 REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379

Practical Tips

Use volumes for data persistence. Named volumes (like pgdata above) survive docker compose down. Use docker compose down -v only when you intentionally want a clean slate.

Use health checks. Instead of relying on depends_on alone (which only waits for the container to start, not for the service to be ready), add health checks:

 db:
 image: postgres:16
 healthcheck:
 test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U dev"]
 interval: 5s
 timeout: 5s
 retries: 5

Keep .env out of version control. Use .env.example as a template and add .env to .gitignore.

Use profiles for optional services. Not everyone needs the monitoring stack running all the time:

 grafana:
 image: grafana/grafana
 profiles: [monitoring]
 ports:
 - "3000:3000"

Start it only when needed: docker compose --profile monitoring up.

What This Enables

A reproducible local environment means:

New team members are productive in minutes, not days.
“Works on my machine” stops being an excuse.
Code reviews can focus on logic instead of environment issues.

That last point matters more than it seems. When reviewers can docker compose up and test a PR locally, the quality of feedback goes up dramatically.

Docker on hxmn.dev

Docker Compose for Local Development

The Basic Setup

Adding Services

Practical Tips

What This Enables