Quick start

This walks you from an empty machine to a running app in a couple of minutes. If you have not installed updock yet, see Installation.

Prerequisites

updock drives Docker, so you need Docker and the Compose plugin installed and the daemon running. Check everything at once:

updock doctor

Every failed check tells you exactly what is wrong and how to fix it. Fix anything it flags before continuing.

Run your first app

Pick an app by name. updock searches Docker Hub, lets you choose, asks the few things that matter, writes the files, and starts it.

updock postgres

What happens:

1. updock searches Docker Hub and shows the ranked matches.
2. You pick one (option 1 is the best match at latest; option 2 lets you choose a specific version).
3. It reads the image and asks about the port, then offers to generate a strong password for POSTGRES_PASSWORD.
4. It writes a project folder under ~/updock/postgres/ and offers to start it.

Say yes, and Postgres is running in the background.

Control it by number

Once a project exists you never type its name again. Everything is by number:

updock ls            # list projects, numbered, with live state
updock status 1      # details for project 1 (secrets masked)
updock logs 1        # show logs
updock logs 1 -f     # follow logs
updock stop 1        # stop it (keeps data)
updock up 1          # start it again
updock open 1        # open the mapped port in your browser
updock rm 1          # delete it (asks first)

Try a multi-service app

Some apps need more than one container. updock ships recipes that scaffold and wire them together for you. For example, WordPress with its database:

updock wordpress

updock recognizes the recipe, generates the database passwords, and brings up both WordPress and MySQL as one project. See Recipes for the full list and how to add your own.

What got created

Have a look at what updock wrote:

ls ~/updock/postgres/
cat ~/updock/postgres/docker-compose.yml   # a normal Compose file, yours to edit
cat ~/updock/postgres/.env                 # values and secrets (chmod 0600)

These are standard files. You can run docker compose in that folder directly if you ever want to. See Projects and file layout for details.

Next steps

• Usage - how the whole flow works
• Commands - every command and flag
• Configuration - change defaults like the projects folder