Using Docker Compose to build image before running

What I learned today — 27 July 2018

This was one of those blind moments, but today I realised that a docker-compose.yml file can also be used for building an image if the image is not yet available.

To make Docker Compose build a missing image simply add the build attribute. The simplest version is build: . which will use the current directory as the docker context and build the image using the Dockerfile found there.

Example

This docker-compose.yml will build and run an image called “business-banking” which is based on jboss/wildfly.

version: '3'
services:
  business-banking:
    build: .
    image: business-banking
    ports:
    - "8080:8080"
    - "9990:9990"
    command: /opt/jboss/wildfly/bin/standalone.sh -bmanagement=0.0.0.0 -b 0.0.0.0