version: 3.9
Note: Build is an OPTIONAL part of the Compose Specification
Compose specification is a platform-neutral way to define multi-container applications. A Compose implementation focussing on development use-case to run application on local machine will obviously also support (re)building application from sources. The Compose Build specification allows to define the build process within a Compose file in a portable way.
Compose Specification is extended to support an OPTIONAL build
subsection on services. This section define the
build requirements for service container image. Only a subset of Compose file services MAY define such a Build
subsection, others being created based on Image
attribute. When a Build subsection is present for a service, it
is valid for a Compose file to miss an Image
attribute for corresponding service, as Compose implementation
can build image from source.
Build can be either specified as a single string defining a context path, or as a detailled build definition.
In the former case, the whole path is used as a Docker context to execute a docker build, looking for a canonical
Dockerfile
at context root. Context path can be absolute or relative, and if so relative path MUST be resolved
from Compose file parent folder. As an absolute path prevent the Compose file to be portable, Compose implementation
SHOULD warn user accordingly.
In the later case, build arguments can be specified, including an alternate Dockerfile
location. This one can be
absolute or relative path. If Dockerfile path is relative, it MUST be resolved from context path. As an absolute
path prevent the Compose file to be portable, Compose implementation SHOULD warn user if an absolute alternate
Dockerfile path is used.
When service definition do include both Image
attribute and a Build
section, Compose implementation can't
guarantee a pulled image is strictly equivalent to building the same image from sources. Without any explicit
user directives, Compose implementation with Build support MUST first try to pull Image, then build from source
if image was not found on registry. Compose implementation MAY offer options to customize this behaviour by user
request.
Compose implementation with Build support SHOULD offer an option to push built images to a registry. Doing so, it
MUST NOT try to push service images without an Image
attribute. Compose implementation SHOULD warn user about
missing Image
attribute which prevent image being pushed.
Compose implementation MAY offer a mechanism to compute an Image
attribute for service when not explicitly
declared in yaml file. In such a case, the resulting Compose configuration is considered to have a valid Image
attribute, whenever the actual raw yaml file doesn't explicitly declare one.
The following sample illustrates Compose specification concepts with a concrete sample application. The sample is non-normative.
services:
frontend:
image: awesome/webapp
build: ./webapp
backend:
image: awesome/database
build:
context: backend
dockerfile: ../backend.Dockerfile
custom:
build: ~/custom
When used to build service images from source, such a Compose file will create three docker images:
awesome/webapp
docker image is build usingwebapp
sub-directory within Compose file parent folder as docker build context. Lack of aDockerfile
within this folder will throw an error.awesome/database
docker image is build usingbackend
sub-directory within Compose file parent folder.backend.Dockerfile
file is used to define build steps, this file is searched relative to context path, which means for this sample..
will resolve to Compose file parent folder, sobackend.Dockerfile
is a sibling file.- a docker image is build using
custom
directory within user's HOME as docker context. Compose implementation warn user about non-portable path used to build image.
On push, both awesome/webapp
and awesome/database
docker images are pushed to (default) registry. custom
service image is skipped as no Image
attribute is set and user is warned about this missing attribute.
The build
element define configuration options that are applied by Compose implementations to build Docker image from source.
build
can be specified either as a string containing a path to the build context or a detailled structure:
services:
webapp:
build: ./dir
Using this string syntax, only the build context can be configured as a relative path to the Compose file's parent folder.
This path MUST be a directory and contain a Dockerfile
.
Alternatively build
can be an object with fields defined as follow
context
defines either a path to a directory containing a Dockerfile, or a url to a git repository.
When the value supplied is a relative path, it MUST be interpreted as relative to the location of the Compose file. Compose implementations MUST warn user about absolute path used to define build context as those prevent Compose file for being portable.
build:
context: ./dir
dockerfile
allows to set an alternate Dockerfile. A relative path MUST be resolved from the build context.
Compose implementations MUST warn user about absolute path used to define Dockerfile as those prevent Compose file
for being portable.
build:
context: .
dockerfile: webapp.Dockerfile
args
define build arguments, i.e. Dockerfile ARG
values.
Using following Dockerfile:
ARG GIT_COMMIT
RUN echo "Based on commit: $GIT_COMMIT"
args
can be set in Compose file under the build
key to define GIT_COMMIT
. args
can be set a mapping or a list:
build:
context: .
args:
GIT_COMMIT: cdc3b19
build:
context: .
args:
- GIT_COMMIT=cdc3b19
Value can be omited when specifying a build argument, in which case its value at build time MUST be obtained by user interaction, otherwise build arg won't be set when building the Docker image.
args:
- GIT_COMMIT
cache_from
defines a list of images that the Image builder SHOULD uses for cache resolution.
build:
context: .
cache_from:
- alpine:latest
- corp/web_app:3.14
extra_hosts
adds hostname mappings at build-time. Use the same syntax as extra_hosts.
extra_hosts:
- "somehost:162.242.195.82"
- "otherhost:50.31.209.229"
Compose implementations MUST create matching entry with the IP address and hostname in the container's network
configuration, which means for Linux /etc/hosts
will get extra lines:
162.242.195.82 somehost
50.31.209.229 otherhost
isolation
specifies a build’s container isolation technology. Like isolation supported values
are platform-specific.
labels
add metadata to the resulting image. labrls
can be set either as an array or a map.
reverse-DNS notation SHOULD be used to prevent labels from conflicting with those used by other software.
build:
context: .
labels:
com.example.description: "Accounting webapp"
com.example.department: "Finance"
com.example.label-with-empty-value: ""
build:
context: .
labels:
- "com.example.description=Accounting webapp"
- "com.example.department=Finance"
- "com.example.label-with-empty-value"
shm_size
set the size of the shared memory (/dev/shm
partition on Linux) allocated for building Docker image. Specify
as an integer value representing the number of bytes or as a string expressing a byte value.
build:
context: .
shm_size: '2gb'
build:
context: .
shm_size: 10000000
target
defines the stage to build as defined inside a multi-stage Dockerfile
.
build:
context: .
target: prod