How to Change the Project Name in Docker Compose

In Docker Compose, the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable allows you to specify the name of your project. This name is used to prefix the names of containers started with the docker-compose up command. The default project name is the basename of the current directory.

Here are some of the reasons why you might want to change the composer project name:

• To avoid conflicts with other projects: If you have multiple projects running on the same Docker host, you may want to give each project a unique name to avoid conflicts with container names.
• To have a more human-readable name: The default project name may be too long or difficult to remember. You can use a shorter or more meaningful name for your project.

There are 3 ways to change the compose project name:

1. Use the -p flag:

You can use the -p flag to specify the project name on the command line. For example, to change the project name to my-project, you would run the following command:

docker-compose -p my-project up

2. Use the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable:

You can also set the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable before running the docker-compose up command. For example, to change the project name to my-project, you would run the following command:

export COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=my-project
docker-compose up

3. Use an environment file:

You can also set the COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME environment variable in an environment file. For example, create a file named .env in the root directory of your project and add the following line to it:

COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=my-project

Then, you can run the docker-compose up command without setting the environment variable explicitly.

Once you have changed the composer project name, you will need to restart any containers that are currently running.