Introduction

minienv creates effortless remote mini environments generated directly from your docker compose config.

The problem

You already describe your stack in docker-compose.yml. Getting that same stack onto a shared cluster — so a teammate can click a link and review your branch — normally means maintaining a second description of it: Kubernetes manifests, or a Helm chart, that drifts from compose the moment anyone adds a service.

minienv removes the second description. It reads the compose file you already have, plus a small extension block, and deploys it.

What it does

Given a compose file, minienv deploy:

1. Builds and pushes images for any service with a build: section.
2. Prepares the target — creating the Kubernetes namespace, or the remote directory the compose project will live in.
3. Deploys your services, respecting depends_on order.
4. Optionally exposes a service publicly via ngrok, so it can be reviewed from anywhere.

minienv destroy tears the whole thing down again.

A complete, working config can be this small:

x-minienv:
  k8s:
    context: minikube
    namespace: my-feature-branch

services:
  hello:
    image: rgonnella/demo-hello:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"

Swap the k8s block for a docker one and the same compose file deploys to a remote host instead:

x-minienv:
  docker:
    namespace: my-feature-branch
    transport:
      ssh:
        host: dev-box.example.com
        identity: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Where to go next

• Getting Started — install it and deploy something.
• Configuration — the extension fields, and which compose fields minienv reads.
• Configuration Reference — every field, in tables.

Two targets, one at a time. k8s deploys each service as a Helm release to a cluster; docker deploys the whole project to a single remote host. See Deployers.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)