Recipe Platform — Docker Compose (Database Layer)

Directory layout

.
├── docker-compose.yml
├── .env.example          # copy to .env and fill in secrets
├── migrations/
│   └── 001_initial_schema.sql   # auto-applied on first container start
├── backups/              # pg_dump output (prod profile)
├── pgadmin/
│   └── servers.json      # auto-registers db in PgAdmin (dev profile)
└── scripts/
    └── backup.sh         # daily dump script used by backup sidecar

First-time setup

# 1. Copy and edit the env file
cp .env.example .env
vi .env   # set strong passwords

# 2. Place your migration file
cp 001_initial_schema.sql migrations/

# 3. Start development stack (Postgres + Redis + PgAdmin)
docker compose --profile dev up -d

# 4. Confirm health
docker compose ps
docker compose logs db

Profiles

Profile	Services started	Use case
(none)	db, redis	CI / minimal
dev	db, redis, pgadmin	Local development
prod	db, redis, backup sidecar	Production deployment

# Dev
docker compose --profile dev up -d

# Prod
docker compose --profile prod up -d

Useful commands

# Open a psql shell
docker exec -it recipedb_postgres psql -U recipeapp -d recipedb

# Run a migration manually
docker exec -i recipedb_postgres psql -U recipeapp -d recipedb < migrations/002_next.sql

# Trigger a manual backup (prod profile)
docker exec recipedb_backup /backup.sh

# Restore from a backup
docker exec -i recipedb_postgres pg_restore \
  --host=localhost --username=recipeapp --dbname=recipedb \
  --clean --if-exists /backups/recipedb_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.dump

# Tail logs
docker compose logs -f db
docker compose logs -f redis

# Stop everything (data volumes preserved)
docker compose --profile dev down

# Nuclear option — destroy volumes too
docker compose --profile dev down -v

Accessing PgAdmin

With the dev profile running, open http://localhost:5050 in your browser. The RecipeDB server is pre-registered — no manual connection setup needed.

Postgres tuning notes

The command: block in docker-compose.yml passes tuning flags suited for a container with ~1 GB RAM. Adjust these if your host has more memory:

Setting	Current	Rule of thumb
shared_buffers	256 MB	25% of available RAM
effective_cache_size	768 MB	75% of available RAM
work_mem	4 MB	RAM / (max_connections * 2)
maintenance_work_mem	64 MB	5-10% of RAM

Security notes

• Both Postgres and Redis ports are bound to 127.0.0.1 only. They are not reachable from outside the host without an explicit tunnel.
• Never commit .env to version control — it is gitignored by convention.
• Rotate POSTGRES_PASSWORD and REDIS_PASSWORD before any production deployment.
• The seed admin user in the migration uses a placeholder password hash. Update it immediately after first boot.