Why should you care?

New hires run entire stack with docker compose up instead of five manual installs.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into your MeanVerse project (Angular + Express + MongoDB), then run with ng serve / node / mongosh as noted.

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  api:
    build: ./api
    ports: ['3000:3000']
    environment:
      MONGO_URI: mongodb://mongo:27017/meanverse
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379
    depends_on: [mongo, redis]
  mongo:
    image: mongo:7
    volumes: ['mongo_data:/data/db']
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
  web:
    build: ./web
    ports: ['8080:80']
volumes:
  mongo_data:

What happened?

• services define containers.
• depends_on starts mongo before api.
• Named volume persists Mongo data between restarts.
• web serves nginx with Angular static files.

Practice next

1. Create compose file linking api, mongo, redis.
2. Use service names as hostnames in env vars.
3. docker compose up -d and hit localhost:8080.
4. Add mailhog service for email testing.
5. Override file compose.override.yml for dev hot reload.

Remember

Compose = local multi-container dev/prod-like. Service DNS names replace localhost in containers. Volumes persist database data.

Demo environment

Sales demos MeanVerse on laptop with full stack in Compose.

Outcome: One command spins API, DB, cache, and UI for prospects.