Production-ready Laravel Docker (Nginx + PHP-FPM + Queue + Postgres)

A production-ready Docker Compose setup for Laravel applications. Used by AI AgentChat starter kit for Laravel developers: https://agenytics.com

It ships with:

• Nginx (serving the app + static assets)
• PHP-FPM (Laravel application runtime)
• A dedicated queue worker
• Postgres
• A one-off migrator service (optional) that enables maintenance mode, runs migrations, then stops

Services

• nginx

• laravel_php_fpm

  • Multi-stage build on php-fpm-alpine.
  • Runs an entrypoint that clears/warms caches and creates the storage symlink.

• laravel_queue_worker

  • Uses the same app image (separate target) and runs php artisan queue:work.

• pgsql

• migrator (optional profile)

  • Runs once. Uses the same app image (separate target)
  • Puts the app into maintenance mode, executes php artisan migrate --force, then brings the app back up.

Configuration

This Compose file uses your .env file. At minimum, ensure these exist:

• DB_DATABASE
• DB_USERNAME
• DB_PASSWORD

Optional:

• NGINX_PORT (defaults to 80)

Run (standard)

Use the production compose file:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

(Optional) Check health/logs:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml ps

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml logs -f nginx

Run with migrations safely (migrator profile)

The migrator service is intentionally not started by default. To run it together with the rest of the stack:

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml --profile migrate up -d

Notes:

• The migrator uses Laravel maintenance mode during the migration window. Queue, Laravel_php_fpm will be in maintanace mode.

• Recommended: change the maintenance --secret value in docker_specific/migrator/run-migrator.sh to something unique for your app.

• Run Artisan commands

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml exec laravel_php_fpm php artisan about

Reverse proxy / hosting

• If you’re using a platform like Coolify (or any reverse proxy like Traefik/Nginx Proxy Manager), you can typically route traffic to the nginx container.
• If you run this on a raw host, ensure NGINX_PORT is set to the port you want exposed publicly.