Compose container logs are only captured for successful starts

[jalaziz]

Expected Behaviour

When enabling log capture for docker compose, all containers logs should be capture regardless of the success of docker compose up

Actual Behaviour

Container logs are only captures if the compose stack successfully starts. This is related to #685.

Testcontainer Logs
...

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable container log capture: export DEBUG="testcontainers*"
2. Use a configuration with a failing dependency:

   version: '3.8'
   services:
     redis:
       image: redis:alpine
       healthcheck:
         test: ["CMD-SHELL", "exit 1"]
         interval: 5s
         timeout: 3s
         retries: 5
         start_period: 10s
     hello:
       image: nginxdemos/hello
       ports:
         - "8080:80"
       depends_on:
         redis:
           condition: service_healthy
   

3. Use testcontainers to start the compose stack:

   let environment = new DockerComposeEnvironment(
     __dirname,
     'docker-compose.yml',
   ).withDefaultWaitStrategy(Wait.forHealthCheck());
   await environment.up();
   

4. Notice that the stack will fail to start without printing any container logs.

Environment Information

• Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
• Docker Version: 28.0.4
• Node version: 24.10.0
• Testcontainers version: 11.0.3

[jalaziz]

The problem seems to stem from the fact that this library doesn't not attempt to collect container logs until up is successful. However, this behavior makes it nearly impossible to capture logs of failing containers that are preventing the stack from successfully starting.

[cristianrgreco]

HI @jalaziz,

This seems to be a limitation in the downstream docker-compose library. Run the usage example with logs enabled and you'll see the output as you see in testcontainers. I would raise the issue there.

const path = require("node:path");
const compose = require('docker-compose');

compose.upAll({ cwd: path.join(__dirname), log: true }).then(
  () => {
    console.log('done')
  },
  (err) => {
    console.log('something went wrong:', err.message)
  }
)

node index.js 
time="2025-12-30T12:05:25Z" level=warning msg="/Users/cristian/Desktop/testcontainers-1210/docker-compose.yml: the attribute `version` is obsolete, it will be ignored, please remove it to avoid potential confusion"
 Network testcontainers-1210_default  Creating
 Network testcontainers-1210_default  Created
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Creating
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Created
 Container testcontainers-1210-hello-1  Creating
 Container testcontainers-1210-hello-1  Created
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Starting
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Started
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Waiting
 Container testcontainers-1210-redis-1  Error
dependency failed to start: container testcontainers-1210-redis-1 is unhealthy
something went wrong: undefined