docs/content/compose/compose-file/15-profiles.md

title	description	keywords
Profiles	Learn about profiles	compose, compose specification, profiles, compose file reference

With profiles you can define a set of active profiles so your Compose application model is adjusted for various usages and environments.

The services top-level element supports a profiles attribute to define a list of named profiles. Services without a profiles attribute are always enabled.

A service is ignored by Compose when none of the listed profiles match the active ones, unless the service is explicitly targeted by a command. In that case its profile is added to the set of active profiles.

Note

All other top-level elements are not affected by profiles and are always active.

References to other services (by links, extends or shared resource syntax service:xxx) do not automatically enable a component that would otherwise have been ignored by active profiles. Instead Compose returns an error.

Illustrative example

services:
  foo:
    image: foo
  bar:
    image: bar
    profiles:
      - test
  baz:
    image: baz
    depends_on:
      - bar
    profiles:
      - test
  zot:
    image: zot
    depends_on:
      - bar
    profiles:
      - debug

In the above example:

• If the Compose application model is parsed with no profile enabled, it only contains the foo service.
• If the profile test is enabled, the model contains the services bar and baz, and service foo, which is always enabled.
• If the profile debug is enabled, the model contains both foo and zot services, but not bar and baz, and as such the model is invalid regarding the depends_on constraint of zot.
• If the profiles debug and test are enabled, the model contains all services; foo, bar, baz and zot.
• If Compose is executed with bar as the explicit service to run, bar and the test profile are active even if test profile is not enabled.
• If Compose is executed with baz as the explicit service to run, the service baz and the profile test are active and bar is pulled in by the depends_on constraint.
• If Compose is executed with zot as the explicit service to run, again the model is invalid regarding the depends_on constraint of zot, since zot and bar have no common profiles listed.
• If Compose is executed with zot as the explicit service to run and profile test is enabled, profile debug is automatically enabled and service bar is pulled in as a dependency starting both services zot and bar.

See how you can use profiles in Docker Compose.