How can I send command line options to my dockerized program that I start with "docker-compose up"?

Question

I am trying to use docker-compose up the way you can use docker run [APP_CONTAINER_NAME] [APP_OPTIONS].

Answer 1

The point of Docker Compose is that you don't have to remember all your command line switches.

If you want to change environment variables for different contexts, I suggest you create a base common.yml file for Compose. You can then create a new yml file for each different context, inheriting from the common.yml file with the extends instruction. You can then use the -f flag to docker compose to switch between contexts.

Also note that Compose should not "rebuild" anything if you just change a variable in the yml, and that you can use an external file for environment variables if that works better for you.

Answer 2

docker run is defined as:

docker run [OPTIONS] IMAGE[:TAG|@DIGEST] [COMMAND] [ARG...]

While docker compose run is defined as:

docker-compose run [options] [-e KEY=VAL...] SERVICE [COMMAND] [ARGS...]

In both cases, the final ARGS (which could be the "APP_OPTIONS" of the OP's question) will be passed to the container command.

Note that some of the docker run option can be used as is in docker-compose run (lie a -d, to run the container command detached), but not all of them.