In this video, I’m sharing some of my favorite Docker Compose tricks I wish I knew sooner. When I first started running containers in my home lab, I made a lot of mistakes like dumping all my configs in one folder, hardcoding passwords, and wondering why things would break. Over time, I’ve learned a ton of best practices that make Docker Compose cleaner, safer, and way more reliable.
Written post on the tricks: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/2025/08/docker-compose-tricks-i-wish-i-knew-sooner/
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Whether you’re just starting out with Docker in your home lab or you’re already running multiple stacks in production, these are tips that will save you time and headaches running your containers.
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Introduction – 0:00
Using a project directory structure – 0:41
Looking at my folder structure – 1:55
Keep configuration values out of Docker Compose – 4:11
Looking at using a .env file in Docker Compose – 5:25
Using Docker labels – 6:54
Looking at Docker labels and what they can do – 7:22
Using health checks in your Docker Compose code – 8:58
Looking at actually using health checks – 9:53
Using Docker Compose profiles – 11:04
Looking at Docker Compose profiles – 11:34
Using the Overrides file in Docker Compose – 12:53
Looking at the overrides file – 13:14
Wrapping up – 15:52
