Docker Compose — Declarative Multi-Service Stack

The problem

Running a multi-container app by hand meant creating networks, launching a database with long environment flags and building/running the app container separately every time — slow, error-prone and impossible to reproduce reliably across machines.

What I built

1. 01

   Authored a declarative docker-compose.yml describing the whole stack: a built web service, its published ports, and a mysql image service with its environment configuration.

2. 02

   Used depends_on to express service ordering so the database is created before the application service starts.

3. 03

   Relied on Compose's automatic project bridge network, letting the Flask service reach the database by service name with no manual docker network create.

4. 04

   Managed the full lifecycle with docker compose up -d, ps, logs -f and down — building, starting, inspecting and tearing down every container, network and resource in single commands.

5. 05

   Treated the Compose file as infrastructure-as-code and living documentation, so anyone cloning the repo gets an identical environment with one command.