A docker-compose file contains the definition of all the services that needs to run in harmony to successfully deploy an app stack.

When services and their interactions are defined clearly in a compose file manually charting a block diagram to list those services and their interaction is redundant, isn't it ? that was the thought I had when I needed to chart a block diagram for documenting my architecture.

A quick search using "tool to convert a docker compose file to a block diagram" yielded this awesome repo https://github.com/pmsipilot/docker-compose-viz

The code in this repo will help us to chart a block diagram from a docker compose file.

Lets create one!

• Sample docker-compose of a simple SaaS stack
  

• Command to execute

  docker run 
  --rm -it \
  --name dcv \ 
  -v /home/user/blog:/input pmsipilot/docker-compose-viz \
  render -m image \
  --force docker-compose.yml \
  --output-file=topology.png \
  --no-volumes \
  --no-ports \
  --no-networks
  

• Ouptput

• Command - With port numbers

docker run 
--rm -it \
--name dcv \ 
-v /home/user/blog:/input pmsipilot/docker-compose-viz \
render -m image \
--force docker-compose.yml \
--output-file=topology.png \
--no-volumes \
--no-networks

• Ouptput - with ports
  

• Command - With volumes

docker run 
--rm -it \
--name dcv \ 
-v /home/user/blog:/input pmsipilot/docker-compose-viz \
render -m image \
--force docker-compose.yml \
--output-file=topology.png \
--no-ports \
--no-networks

• Ouptput - with volumes