Set or change pre-defined environment variables in Docker Compose
Compose already comes with pre-defined environment variables. It also inherits common Docker CLI environment variables, such as DOCKER_HOST
and DOCKER_CONTEXT
. See
Docker CLI environment variable reference for details.
This page contains information on how you can set or change the following pre-defined environment variables if you need to:
COMPOSE_CONVERT_WINDOWS_PATHS
COMPOSE_FILE
COMPOSE_PROFILES
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME
DOCKER_CERT_PATH
COMPOSE_PARALLEL_LIMIT
COMPOSE_IGNORE_ORPHANS
COMPOSE_REMOVE_ORPHANS
COMPOSE_PATH_SEPARATOR
COMPOSE_ANSI
COMPOSE_STATUS_STDOUT
COMPOSE_ENV_FILES
COMPOSE_MENU
COMPOSE_EXPERIMENTAL
Methods to override
You can set or change the pre-defined environment variables:
- Within your Compose file using the
environment
attribute - With the
env-file
attribute and an environment file - From the command line
- From your shell
When changing or setting any environment variables, be aware of Environment variable precedence.
Configure
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME
Sets the project name. This value is prepended along with the service name to the container's name on startup.
For example, if your project name is myapp
and it includes two services db
and web
,
then Compose starts containers named myapp-db-1
and myapp-web-1
respectively.
Compose can set the project name in different ways. The level of precedence (from highest to lowest) for each method is as follows:
- The
-p
command line flag COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME
- The top level
name:
variable from the config file (or the lastname:
from a series of config files specified using-f
) - The
basename
of the project directory containing the config file (or containing the first config file specified using-f
) - The
basename
of the current directory if no config file is specified
Project names must contain only lowercase letters, decimal digits, dashes, and
underscores, and must begin with a lowercase letter or decimal digit. If the
basename
of the project directory or current directory violates this
constraint, you must use one of the other mechanisms.
See also the
command-line options overview and
using -p
to specify a project name.
COMPOSE_FILE
Specifies the path to a Compose file. Specifying multiple Compose files is supported.
- Default behavior: If not provided, Compose looks for a file named
compose.yaml
ordocker-compose.yaml
in the current directory and, if not found, then Compose searches each parent directory recursively until a file by that name is found. - Default separator: When specifying multiple Compose files, the path separators are, by default, on:
- Mac and Linux:
:
(colon), - Windows:
;
(semicolon).
- Mac and Linux:
The path separator can also be customized using COMPOSE_PATH_SEPARATOR
.
Example: COMPOSE_FILE=docker-compose.yml:docker-compose.prod.yml
.
See also the
command-line options overview and
using -f
to specify name and path of one or more Compose files.
COMPOSE_PROFILES
Specifies one or more profiles to be enabled on compose up
execution.
Services with matching profiles are started as well as any services for which no profile has been defined.
For example, calling docker compose up
with COMPOSE_PROFILES=frontend
selects services with the
frontend
profile as well as any services without a profile specified.
- Default separator: specify a list of profiles using a comma as separator.
Example: COMPOSE_PROFILES=frontend,debug
This example enables all services matching both the frontend
and debug
profiles and services without a profile.
See also
Using profiles with Compose and the
--profile
command-line option.
COMPOSE_CONVERT_WINDOWS_PATHS
When enabled, Compose performs path conversion from Windows-style to Unix-style in volume definitions.
- Supported values:
true
or1
, to enable,false
or0
, to disable.
- Defaults to:
0
.
COMPOSE_PATH_SEPARATOR
Specifies a different path separator for items listed in COMPOSE_FILE
.
- Defaults to:
- On macOS and Linux to
:
, - On Windows to
;
.
- On macOS and Linux to
COMPOSE_IGNORE_ORPHANS
When enabled, Compose doesn't try to detect orphaned containers for the project.
- Supported values:
true
or1
, to enable,false
or0
, to disable.
- Defaults to:
0
.
COMPOSE_PARALLEL_LIMIT
Specifies the maximum level of parallelism for concurrent engine calls.
COMPOSE_ANSI
Specifies when to print ANSI control characters.
- Supported values:
auto
, Compose detects if TTY mode can be used. Otherwise, use plain text mode.never
, use plain text mode.always
or0
, use TTY mode.
- Defaults to:
auto
.
COMPOSE_STATUS_STDOUT
When enabled, Compose writes its internal status and progress messages to stdout
instead of stderr
.
The default value is false to clearly separate the output streams between Compose messages and your container's logs.
- Supported values:
true
or1
, to enable,false
or0
, to disable.
- Defaults to:
0
.
COMPOSE_ENV_FILES
Lets you specify which environment files Compose should use if --env-file
isn't used.
When using multiple environment files, use a comma as a separator. For example,
COMPOSE_ENV_FILES=.env.envfile1, .env.envfile2
If COMPOSE_ENV_FILES
is not set, and you don't provide --env-file
in the CLI, Docker Compose uses the default behavior, which is to look for an .env
file in the project directory.
COMPOSE_MENU
Available in Docker Compose version 2.26.0 and later, and Docker Desktop version 4.29 and later.
When enabled, Compose displays a navigation menu where you can choose to open the Compose stack in Docker Desktop, switch on
watch
mode, or use
Docker Debug.
- Supported values:
true
or1
, to enable,false
or0
, to disable.
- Defaults to:
1
if you obtained Docker Compose through Docker Desktop, otherwise default is0
.
COMPOSE_EXPERIMENTAL
Available in Docker Compose version 2.26.0 and later, and Docker Desktop version 4.29 and later.
This is an opt-out variable. When turned off it deactivates the experimental features such as the navigation menu or Synchronized file shares.
- Supported values:
true
or1
, to enable,false
or0
, to disable.
- Defaults to:
1
.
Unsupported in Compose V2
The following environment variables have no effect in Compose V2. For more information, see Migrate to Compose V2.
COMPOSE_API_VERSION
By default the API version is negotiated with the server. UseDOCKER_API_VERSION
.
See the Docker CLI environment variable reference page.COMPOSE_HTTP_TIMEOUT
COMPOSE_TLS_VERSION
COMPOSE_FORCE_WINDOWS_HOST
COMPOSE_INTERACTIVE_NO_CLI
COMPOSE_DOCKER_CLI_BUILD
UseDOCKER_BUILDKIT
to select between BuildKit and the classic builder. IfDOCKER_BUILDKIT=0
thendocker compose build
uses the classic builder to build images.