Start Compose services detached and view one service's logs

WHAT THIS TESTS It checks fluency with the Compose lifecycle commands and the distinction between Compose service names and raw container references.

A GOOD ANSWER COVERS To start everything in the background: docker compose up -d. This creates the default network, builds images where a build directive exists, and runs every service detached so your terminal returns. To view logs for just one service: docker compose logs web, where web is the service key from the YAML; add -f to follow in real time and --tail=100 to bound history. The Compose CLI resolves the service name to its container, aggregating logs even if the service is scaled to multiple replicas. A strong candidate notes that modern Docker uses the compose subcommand (docker compose) rather than the legacy docker-compose binary.

COMMON WRONG ANSWERS Using docker logs web, which treats web as a container name and may not match the Compose-generated container name. Omitting -d and tying up the shell. Confusing docker compose logs with docker compose up output, or thinking you must grep a combined log stream.

LIKELY FOLLOW-UPS How do you follow logs for all services versus one? What is the difference between docker compose and docker-compose? How do you stop and remove everything with down?

ONE CONCRETE EXAMPLE With a web and a db service defined, docker compose up -d brings both up in the background. While debugging a request error you run docker compose logs -f web and watch only the web app's request logs stream, without the database's noisy startup output mixed in.