blent is a devops tool for ergonomically managing many docker-compose projects.
It provides a simple CLI to query and manage individual services or multiple projects, simplifying deployment and updates.
click to enlarge
- Overview of services
- Fine-grained target filtering
- One command for updating all of your containers
- Starting, stopping and viewing logs of services
blent expects stacks as compose files in separate directories below the app path, like this:
app/
stack-1/
compose.yml
stack-2/
compose.yml
You can name your compose files compose or docker-compose, .yml or .yaml, but they must be in a structure like the above.
Symlinks should work, but this is mostly contingent on docker-compose and not tested.
Tip
You can prefix directories with a . to make blent ignore them.
Most commands accept a filter argument, allowing you to specify which stacks/services to act upon. This comes in the form of either stack:service or just stack, referring to the individual service or all services of the stack, respectively.
blent status [-d] [FILTER]...
Shows an overview of all stacks, allowing you to quickly grasp the state of your system.
-d: shows additional details in a tabular format, listing each service along with key information.
If no filter is supplied, all stacks are shown.
click to show example
$ blent status -d auth traefik metrics
NAME IMAGE CREATED STATUS
auth (3/3)
authelia authelia/authelia 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes (healthy)
ldap osixia/openldap 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes
session valkey/valkey:alpine 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes
metrics (7/7)
blackbox prom/blackbox-exporter a month ago Up 26 hours
cadvisor gcr.io/cadvisor/cadvisor:v0.49.1 a month ago Up 26 hours (healthy)
grafana grafana/grafana 2 days ago Up 26 hours
loki grafana/loki 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes
nodeexporter prom/node-exporter 2 days ago Up 26 hours
prometheus prom/prometheus 2 days ago Up 26 hours
promtail grafana/promtail 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes
traefik (2/2)
errorpages ghcr.io/thorio/website/errorpages:latest 18 minutes ago Up 18 minutes
traefik traefik an hour ago Up 55 minutes
blent up [-f] (<FILTER>... | -a) [-- <COMPOSE_ARGS>...]
Creates/starts/updates specified services, just like docker compose up.
-f: Recreates containers, even when they are already up-to-date. Equivalent to compose's --force-recreate.
-a: When passed instead of a filter, operates on all known services.
Arguments after -- will be passed to docker compose as-is.
click to show example
$ blent up -f traefik:errorpages metrics:promtail metrics:loki auth
[1/3] auth...
[+] Running 3/3
✔ Container auth-session-1 Started
✔ Container auth-authelia-1 Started
✔ Container auth-ldap-1 Started
[1/3] auth
[2/3] traefik...
[+] Running 1/1
✔ Container traefik-errorpages-1 Started
[2/3] traefik
[3/3] metrics...
[+] Running 2/2
✔ Container metrics-promtail-1 Started
✔ Container metrics-loki-1 Started
[3/3] metrics
blent down [-r] (<FILTER>... | -a) [-- <COMPOSE_ARGS>...]
Stops and removes specified services, just like docker compose down.
-r: Equivalent to compose's --remove-orphans.
-a: When passed instead of a filter, operates on all known services.
Arguments after -- will be passed to docker compose as-is.
click to show example
$ blent down auth
[1/1] auth...
[+] Running 5/5
✔ Container auth-authelia-1 Removed
✔ Container auth-session-1 Removed
✔ Container auth-ldap-1 Removed
✔ Network ldap Removed
✔ Network auth_default Removed
[1/1] auth
blent logs [-f] <FILTER>... [-- <COMPOSE_ARGS>...]
Shows the logs of the specified services, just like docker compose logs.
-f: Follows the output. Equivalent to compose's --follow.
Arguments after -- will be passed to docker compose as-is.
Note
This command cannot be used on multiple stacks at once.
click to show example
$ blent logs auth:authelia
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Authelia v4.38.18 is starting"
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Log severity set to info"
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Storage schema is being checked for updates"
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Storage schema is already up to date"
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Startup complete"
authelia-1 | time="2025-02-02T12:54:34+01:00" level=info msg="Listening for non-TLS connections on '[::]:8080' path '/'" server=main service=server
blent update [-p] (<FILTER>... | -a) [-- <COMPOSE_ARGS>...]
Pulls the latest images for the specified services and recreates the containers.
-p: Prunes images that are left dangling after the update.
-a: When passed instead of a filter, operates on all known services.
Arguments after -- will be passed to docker compose (pull and up commands) as-is.
Important
blent will only pull the tag you specified in your compose file, it will not update your compose file.
Use tags like :latest, :v3 or similar to allow for updates without compose file modification.
click to show example
$ blent update traefik -p
[1/1] traefik...
[+] Pulling 6/6
✔ errorpages Pulled
✔ traefik Pulled
✔ 1f3e46996e29 Already exists
✔ 4cede9bb62a3 Pull complete
✔ b2ee4e6746aa Pull complete
✔ 7ff63f5364ca Pull complete
[+] Running 2/2
✔ Container traefik-errorpages-1 Running
✔ Container traefik-traefik-1 Started
[1/1] traefik
pruning images...
pruned 1 images
reclaimed 182.5 MB
Binaries are available for the following platforms:
| Platform | |
|---|---|
| Arch | Package |
| Debian | Package |
| Linux | Binaries |
The only configurable option is the directory in which compose stacks are placed (--app-path).
If you do not want to use the default path ~/app, it is recommended to add an alias to your shell configuration.
Using the devcontainer is highly encouraged to get up and running ASAP, otherwise:
- Install Rust
- Use normal cargo commands for development (
cargo build,cargo run), usecargo-makefor packaging.