Start All Projects with Docker Compose in Different Directories

  • Bash
  • Gabriele Romanato

If you manage multiple containerized projects spread across different folders, it can be inconvenient to manually run docker compose up for each one. In this article, I’ll show you how to create a Bash script that automatically locates all docker-compose.yml files and starts each corresponding project.

Objective

Scan a main directory (and all its subdirectories) for docker-compose.yml or docker-compose.yaml files, and run docker compose up -d for each one.

Bash Script

#!/bin/bash

# Main directory where to search for projects
ROOT_DIR="$HOME/projects"

# Find all docker-compose.* files and start the containers
find "$ROOT_DIR" -type f \( -name "docker-compose.yml" -o -name "docker-compose.yaml" \) | while read -r compose_file; do
  project_dir=$(dirname "$compose_file")
  echo "Starting project in: $project_dir"
  (
    cd "$project_dir" && docker compose up -d
  )
done

Usage Instructions

  1. Copy the above code into a file named, for example, start_projects.sh.
  2. Make the file executable: 
    chmod +x start_projects.sh
  3. Run the script: 
    ./start_projects.sh

Considerations

  • The script uses docker compose, the new recommended syntax instead of the deprecated docker-compose command.
  • You can customize ROOT_DIR to match your system.
  • The -d flag starts the containers in the background. If you want to see logs, remove it.
  • To avoid entering unwanted directories (like node_modules), you can add a filter to find.

Possible Extensions

You can also adapt the script to:

  • Stop all projects with docker compose down.
  • Check status with docker compose ps.
  • Log output to a file for any errors.

This approach allows you to efficiently manage multi-project Docker environments, automating startup and making your development setup more productive.

Back to top