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MultiDocker

Registering & Detecting Projects

Before MultiDocker can run a project, it has to know about it. Registration records the project’s path, chosen profile and hostnames in registry.json and generates its override file.

Discover compose files with scan

Section titled “Discover compose files with scan”

scan walks a directory tree looking for compose files (default root ~/Projects, maximum depth 4):

mdocker scan
mdocker scan
mdocker scan ~/clients --json

It is read-only — nothing is registered until you init.

Preview the profile with detect

Section titled “Preview the profile with detect”

detect runs the profile heuristic against a compose file without registering anything:

mdocker detect
mdocker detect ~/Projects/aurora/docker-compose.yml

Register with init

Section titled “Register with init”
mdocker init
mdocker init ~/Projects/aurora

init detects the profile, writes ~/.config/multi-docker/overrides/<name>.override.yml, and adds the project to the registry. For dockware-based projects it also patches the project’s .docker/proxy/*.conf files.

Overriding the defaults

Section titled “Overriding the defaults”
Flag Purpose
--name <N> Use an explicit project name instead of the directory name.
--profile <P> Force a specific profile instead of the detected one.
--host <H> Set a hostname. Repeat the flag for multiple hostnames.
explicit registration
mdocker init ~/Projects/aurora \
  --name aurora \
  --profile generic \
  --host aurora.coding9.test \
  --host admin.aurora.coding9.test

How profile detection works

Section titled “How profile detection works”

The heuristic (engine/detect.sh) inspects image and service names in the compose file and picks the best-matching template. Bundled profiles include:

  • shopware-dockware — Shopware 6 with the dockware proxy.
  • strapi-next — a Next.js front-end with a Strapi headless backend.
  • api-web-postgres — an nginx reverse proxy in front of a split api + web service with a PostgreSQL database.
  • generic — the fallback: any service exposing port 80 or 8080 gets synthesized Traefik labels automatically.

If detection guesses wrong, pass --profile at init, or change it later and re-render. To learn how templates are written and customized, see Writing & Customizing Profiles and the Profiles & Templating concept page.

Section titled “Related”
MultiDocker · Coding9 GmbH