Docker Compose Patterns for Local Development

Every developer has experienced it: "works on my machine." Docker Compose solves this by making your development environment reproducible.

The Basic Pattern

version: "3.8"
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - .:/app
      - /app/node_modules
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@db:5432/myapp
    depends_on:
      - db
  
  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: user
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: pass
      POSTGRES_DB: myapp
    volumes:
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    ports:
      - "5432:5432"

volumes:
  pgdata:

Hot Reload with Volumes

The key to a good DX is the volume mount:

volumes:
  - .:/app           # Mount your code
  - /app/node_modules # But keep node_modules in the container

This gives you hot reload while keeping platform-specific native modules correctly compiled for the container's OS.

Multi-Service Development

For microservice architectures, compose files become your orchestration layer:

services:
  frontend:
    build: ./frontend
    ports: ["3000:3000"]
  
  api:
    build: ./api
    ports: ["4000:4000"]
    depends_on: [db, redis]
  
  worker:
    build: ./worker
    depends_on: [db, redis]
  
  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
  
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

Health Checks

Don't just use depends_on — add health checks:

db:
  image: postgres:16-alpine
  healthcheck:
    test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U user"]
    interval: 5s
    timeout: 5s
    retries: 5

app:
  depends_on:
    db:
      condition: service_healthy

Conclusion

Docker Compose transforms local development from a setup nightmare into a single docker compose up command. Invest the time to get it right — your team will thank you.