0.79.1
Guides

Compose files

ProxDock does not replace Docker. It writes Compose files and runs docker compose against them. What it adds is a transformation step: an upstream file goes in, and every change ProxDock would make is shown, with the reason, before anything is written to disk.

Status: the rules below are accurate and shipped. The full table of refusal codes is still being written.

The transformation preview: eleven changes, each with a path, a before and after, and the reason it was made.
A real preview, from deploying the bundled Uptime Kuma template. Each change carries the reason it was made; the bar above says whether anything needs a decision from you.

The other half of the preview is the file that comes out, which is what gets written and handed to docker compose.

The rendered Compose file the transformation produced.
Nothing is written until you deploy. This is a preview of the file, not the file.

Deploying an application walks the whole flow with screenshots.

What gets changed

Path Change Why
ports: Removed The application gets its own address on a zone; published host ports would collide across the cluster
restart: Forced to no Startup is gated by the orchestrator so a node reboot does not race the dataset mount
image: Pinned to a digest Resolved at deploy so a rollback is exact rather than approximate
Named volumes Rewritten into the application dataset A snapshot has to capture the data, which means it has to live where the snapshot is taken
Relative binds Rewritten into the application dataset Same reason; a relative path outside the dataset is invisible to a backup
networks: Split into a per-stack bridge plus the zone Only the service that needs an address gets one; the rest talk over the bridge

What gets refused

These are refusals, not warnings. The deploy does not proceed, and the reason is attached to the field that caused it.

  • privileged: true
  • network_mode: host
  • A bind mount of the Docker socket

Referring to your own identity

A Compose file can refer to the application's own identity, resolved during the transform, so a file that needs to know its own base URL can say so portably.

Variable Resolves to
${PROXDOCK_IP} The address allocated to the application on its zone
${PROXDOCK_APP} The application's name

More of these exist; the complete list is being written up.

Reading the preview

Each change is a path, a before, an after, and a reason. Warnings are separated from refusals: a warning is something you should know about, a refusal is something that will not deploy. If a file needs no changes at all, the preview says so rather than showing an empty list.

The reasons are the point. restart is not forced off because ProxDock dislikes restart policies; it is forced off because a restart policy would resurrect the application on a node it migrated away from. Every line in the preview reads like that, so you can disagree with one on its merits rather than guessing at intent.