Docker Compose Cheatsheet - Command Reference

For developers who need to bring up, stop, and upgrade a whole stack at once — database, cache, backend, frontend — as a single unit. Compose value is not in the commands themselves but in a single docker-compose.yml that pins down the network, dependencies, and config between services so the whole environment can be started and stopped repeatedly. By the end you can bring the stack up with up, find the failing service with logs, clean up fully (and safely) with down -v, and scale out with --scale.

Containers & Orchestration·25 commands·Last updated 2026-07-21

Start & Stop 5

docker compose up -d

Start all services in background, omit -d for foreground logs

docker compose up -d --build

Force rebuild images before starting

docker compose stop

Stop services but keep containers for quick restart

docker compose down

Stop and remove containers and networks, add -v for volumes

docker compose restart svc

Restart a specific service

Logs & Status 5

docker compose ps

List service status in the project

docker compose logs -f svc

Follow logs for a service, omit svc for all

docker compose logs --tail=100 svc

View last 100 lines for a service

docker compose top

View running processes inside service containers

docker compose port svc 80

View actual host port mapped to service port

Config & Build 5

docker compose config

Validate and expand compose config, see variable substitution

docker compose build

Build all service images, add --no-cache to bypass cache

docker compose pull

Pull all service images, do this before updating

docker compose exec svc sh

Shell into a running service container

docker compose run --rm svc cmd

Run a one-off command in a service container, --rm removes it after

Network & Volume 5

docker compose up -d --scale svc=3

Horizontally scale a service to 3 instances

docker network ls

List networks, compose projects create their own

docker compose down -v

Remove project and clean up named volumes, data will be lost

docker volume ls

List volumes, compose volume format is project_name_volume_name

docker compose config --volumes

List all volumes defined in the compose file

FAQ 5

Q: What is the difference between docker compose up and docker compose start?

A: docker compose up creates and starts containers (add -d to run in background); docker compose start only starts existing stopped containers without recreating them.

Q: How do I rebuild images?

A: docker compose build rebuilds all service images; add --no-cache to force a full rebuild. docker compose up -d --build builds automatically before starting.

Q: How do I view Compose project logs?

A: docker compose logs -f shows all services; docker compose logs -f <service> shows only one service; add --tail=100 to limit lines.

Q: How do I start only a specific service?

A: docker compose up -d <service> starts only that service and its dependencies, leaving others stopped.

Q: How do I remove all containers and volumes?

A: docker compose down -v removes all containers and networks and cleans named volumes; data is permanently lost, use with caution in production.

Tips

Compose commands look for docker-compose.yml in the current directory by default; use -f for other files, -p for project name.
down does not remove volumes by default — add -v to remove them; back up production volumes first, named volume data is irrecoverable.
Services scaled with --scale must not use fixed host ports, or multiple instances will conflict.

Official References

Each command links to its official documentation below, so you can verify the latest usage and read deeper.

Docker Docs

Maintained by LaoHand

Publicly updated on Jul 21, 2026, continuously proofread against official docs.

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