For AI agents: The documentation index is at https://docs.digitalocean.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of pages use the same URL with index.html.md in place of the HTML page (for example, append index.html.md to the directory path instead of opening the HTML document).

Compose Control gives Droplet administrators a browser-based control panel for Docker and Docker Compose. It includes first-run administrator setup, container and stack views, logs, resource stats, Docker image/network/volume management, and a built-in app catalog for deploying common self-hosted apps. Managed stacks are stored as ordinary Compose files on disk so users can inspect and move them outside the UI. Compose Control is intended for trusted administrators and should be protected with HTTPS and access controls before being exposed broadly.

Software Included

Creating an App using the Control Panel

Click the Deploy to DigitalOcean button to create a Droplet based on this 1-Click App. If you aren’t logged in, this link will prompt you to log in with your DigitalOcean account.

Creating an App using the API

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Compose Control 1-Click App using the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API. As an example, to create a 4GB Compose Control Droplet in the SFO2 region, you can use the following curl command. You need to either save your API access token to an environment variable or substitute it in the command below.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
         -H 'Authorization: Bearer '$TOKEN'' -d \
        '{"name":"choose_a_name","region":"sfo2","size":"s-2vcpu-4gb","image":"stoxello-composecontrol"}' \
        "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"

Getting Started After Deploying Compose Control

After your Droplet is created, open:

http://your_droplet_public_ipv4:8080

Complete the first-run setup wizard to create the initial administrator account. Public registration is disabled after the first administrator is created.

Compose Control manages the Docker engine on this Droplet. Because it has administrative access to Docker through /var/run/docker.sock, treat access to the Compose Control dashboard as administrator access to the Droplet.

For production use, place Compose Control behind a reverse proxy with HTTPS before exposing it broadly.

You can connect to the Droplet over SSH with:

ssh root@your_droplet_public_ipv4

Useful commands:

systemctl status compose-control

systemctl restart compose-control

docker compose -f /opt/compose-control/compose.yaml logs –tail 100