How to Rebuild a Docker Container in docker-compose.yml

When working with Docker Compose during development, you’ll often need to rebuild a container—whether you’ve made changes to your application code, Dockerfile, or dependencies.

But how do you do that correctly and efficiently?

In this post, you’ll learn how to rebuild Docker containers defined in a docker-compose.yml file using simple and effective commands.

Table of Contents

📦 What Does Rebuilding a Container Mean?

Rebuilding a container means:

Rebuilding the Docker image using the instructions in the Dockerfile
Re-creating and restarting the container with the new changes

This is required when:

You update the application code or packages
You modify the Dockerfile
You change environment variables or volumes in docker-compose.yml

✅ The Right Command: `docker-compose up --build`

The most common way to rebuild a container is:

docker-compose up --build

What it does:

Rebuilds images before starting containers
Only rebuilds services where changes are detected (like Dockerfile or app source)
Keeps containers running after rebuild

🔁 Force a Full Rebuild (Clean Slate)

If you want to force a rebuild and remove old containers, run:

docker-compose up --build --force-recreate

This will:

Rebuild all images
Recreate all containers, even if the image hasn’t changed

🛠️ Rebuild Without Starting the Containers

If you only want to rebuild the image without running it:

docker-compose build

This is useful for caching layers or preparing an image in CI/CD pipelines.

To rebuild just one service:

docker-compose build service-name

🔄 Full Clean and Rebuild Workflow

Here’s a common development workflow for a full reset:

docker-compose down --volumes --remove-orphans
docker-compose build
docker-compose up

Explanation:

down stops and removes containers, networks, volumes
build ensures all services are freshly built
up starts everything with a clean state

📝 Example

Let’s say you have a docker-compose.yml like this:

services:
  web:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - .:/app

To rebuild and restart the web container:

docker-compose up --build

To rebuild only the web service:

docker-compose build web

🚨 When Changes Don’t Reflect

Sometimes your rebuild doesn’t apply changes. Possible reasons:

The Dockerfile or docker-compose.yml didn’t actually change
You’re using volume mounts (volumes: - .:/app) which overwrite container content
Docker cache is persisting old layers

✅ Fix: Add --no-cache if needed:

docker-compose build --no-cache

✅ Summary

Task	Command
Rebuild all containers	`docker-compose up --build`
Force rebuild and recreate	`docker-compose up --build --force-recreate`
Rebuild without running	`docker-compose build`
Rebuild one service	`docker-compose build <service>`
Rebuild from scratch	`docker-compose down && docker-compose build && docker-compose up`

🎯 Conclusion

Rebuilding Docker containers with docker-compose.yml is simple but essential for maintaining a clean and consistent development environment. Use up --build for common updates, and build or down for deeper resets.