Description

I've stumbled upon an admittedly silly mistake on my part that, however, shed light on a significant usability issue with Docker Compose. In a moment of oversight, I configured a Docker service in the docker-compose.yml file to depend on itself. This misstep led to a stack overflow error. The real issue here is not the mistake itself — as embarrassing as it is to admit — but the vague and unclear error message provided when such a scenario occurs.

To reproduce this error, one simply needs to list a service as its own dependency under the depends_on section of the docker-compose.yml file. While I recognize the folly in such a configuration, the expectation would naturally be for Docker Compose to either prevent this configuration due to its inherently problematic nature or, at the very least, offer a clear, understandable error message pinpointing the misconfiguration. Unfortunately, the feedback given is a stack overflow error that lacks direct guidance on how to resolve the issue, which can be perplexing and time-consuming to debug.

I'm fully aware that this mistake might be considered a rookie error, yet it underscores a broader point about the importance of clear, actionable error messages in software development tools. Improving the clarity of error messages in cases like this could significantly enhance the developer experience, making it easier to identify and correct misconfigurations quickly.

I hope this feedback is taken as constructive, with the aim of making Docker Compose even more user-friendly and forgiving, especially for new users who might fall into similar traps. Thank you for considering this enhancement to your error reporting mechanism.

Steps To Reproduce

Here's a simplified example of how the issue can be reproduced in a docker-compose.yml file. This example demonstrates the misconfiguration of a service incorrectly listing itself as its dependency.

version: '3.8'

services:
  app:
    image: "my-application:latest"
    depends_on:
      - app # Error: The 'app' service is listed as its own dependency, leading to a stack overflow.

Steps to Reproduce the Issue:

1. Create a docker-compose.yml file with the content provided above.
2. Run the command docker-compose up in the directory containing the file.

Expected Outcome:

Ideally, Docker Compose should identify the circular configuration as invalid and halt execution, providing a clear and specific error message indicating the issue with the circular dependency.

Actual Outcome:

Execution results in a stack overflow, accompanied by an error message that does not clearly specify the nature of the problem, making it difficult for the user to diagnose and correct the configuration error.

Compose Version

Docker Compose version 2.24.7

Docker Environment

Client:
 Version:    25.0.3
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  0.13.0
    Path:     /usr/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  2.24.7
    Path:     /usr/lib/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Server:
 Containers: 3
  Running: 2
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 1
 Images: 5
 Server Version: 25.0.3
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: extfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: true
  Native Overlay Diff: false
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: systemd
 Cgroup Version: 2
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 Swarm: inactive
 Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 runc
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: 7c3aca7a610df76212171d200ca3811ff6096eb8.m
 runc version: 
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 6.7.8-arch1-1
 Operating System: Arch Linux
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 8
 Total Memory: 15.36GiB
 Name: archlinux
 ID: MLZX:5KRH:Y4XN:LAAE:4E7H:IKV5:OWMQ:AFK4:ZJ2X:LRNU:D6ST:M4U2
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  127.0.0.0/8
 Live Restore Enabled: false

Anything else?

No response