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A Calm Docker Compose Setup for Local Development

Organizing application services, health checks, environment variables, and local dependencies without making development fragile.

Docker Compose is useful when it makes local development repeatable. It becomes frustrating when it hides too much or starts too slowly.

Keep services obvious

Name containers clearly, expose only the ports you use, and document the expected local URLs.

Use health checks

Health checks help avoid racing the application against MySQL or Redis startup.

Prefer small defaults

Local infrastructure should be boring. Keep environment variables explicit and avoid production-only complexity until it is needed.