Disable docker compose CLI menu

Docker compose introduced a new feature in a recent update called the compose menu. It adds an extra line in the terminal while running docker compose up in the attached mode, i.e. without the -d flag.

Image source: https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/14021#issuecomment-2161370349

The issue is that the menu breaks the active session. In my case, after stopping the containers, I could not see what I was typing in the terminal, as if I was entering a password: the text was not visible.

As this menu doesn't bring anything useful to the table, I figured I should be able to disable it. According to the documentation, there are two ways to turn it off:

• By passing an option: docker compose up --menu=false
• By setting an env var: COMPOSE_MENU=false

I opted for the latter as I needed this globally. You can add one line to .bashrc:

export COMPOSE_MENU=false

This will work for new terminal sessions. To apply changes to the current session, run:

source ~/.bashrc

And voilà, the menu won't bother you anymore!