Develop with Compose and live reload

Approach

Use develop.watch in Compose: sync copies changed files into the container, rebuild rebuilds when dependency files change. Run the app with its own auto-reload (uvicorn --reload, nodemon).

Solution

services:
  api:
    build: .
    command: ["uvicorn", "src.main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--reload"]
    ports: ["127.0.0.1:8000:8000"]
    develop:
      watch:
        - action: sync
          path: ./src
          target: /app/src
        - action: rebuild
          path: requirements.txt

docker compose watch

Pitfalls

• Bind-mounting the whole project over the image's dependency directory (hides node_modules or venv).
• Publishing dev ports on all interfaces on shared networks.

Variations

• Classic bind mounts (volumes: [./src:/app/src]) where file watching works across the mount.
• compose.override.yaml to keep development settings out of the production-like file.

Further reading: Compose watch