your Compose stack cannot be published as it only contains a

Error message

your Compose stack cannot be published as it only contains a build section for service(s):
- %q

What it means

`docker compose publish` builds and pushes images to a registry; a service that has only `build:` and no `image:` produces an image with no registry tag to push, so the pre-flight check rejects the whole stack with a list of offending services. Every service must reference a publishable image name.

Source

Thrown at pkg/compose/publish.go:666

		layers = append(layers, layerDescriptor)
	}
	return layers
}

func (s *composeService) checkOnlyBuildSection(project *types.Project) (bool, error) {
	errorList := []string{}
	for _, service := range project.Services {
		if service.Image == "" && service.Build != nil {
			errorList = append(errorList, service.Name)
		}
	}
	if len(errorList) > 0 {
		var errMsg strings.Builder
		errMsg.WriteString("your Compose stack cannot be published as it only contains a build section for service(s):\n")
		for _, serviceInError := range errorList {
			fmt.Fprintf(&errMsg, "- %q\n", serviceInError)
		}
		return false, errors.New(errMsg.String())
	}
	return true, nil
}

func (s *composeService) checkForBindMount(project *types.Project) map[string][]types.ServiceVolumeConfig {
	allFindings := map[string][]types.ServiceVolumeConfig{}
	for serviceName, config := range project.Services {
		bindMounts := []types.ServiceVolumeConfig{}
		for _, volume := range config.Volumes {
			if volume.Type == types.VolumeTypeBind {
				bindMounts = append(bindMounts, volume)
			}
		}
		if len(bindMounts) > 0 {
			allFindings[serviceName] = bindMounts
		}
	}
	return allFindings

View on GitHub (pinned to ddc4b044b6)

Solutions

Add an `image: <registry>/<namespace>/<name>:<tag>` to every service that has `build:`
Use an override file (docker-compose.publish.yml) that adds image: entries, and publish with -f overrides
Remove non-publishable helper services from the published stack via profiles

Example fix

# before
services:
  api:
    build: .
# after
services:
  api:
    build: .
    image: ghcr.io/acme/api:latest

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

python3 - <<'EOF'
import yaml,sys
cfg=yaml.safe_load(open('compose.yaml'))
bad=[n for n,s in (cfg.get('services') or {}).items() if not s.get('image') and s.get('build')]
if bad: sys.exit(f"services missing image: {bad}")
print('publishable')
EOF

Prevention

Adopt the habit of always pairing build: with image: so every built service is tagged
Run the publishability check in CI before the actual publish job

When it happens

Trigger: Running `docker compose publish` when at least one service sets build: without an image: — canBePublished collects services where service.Image == "" && service.Build != nil and fails.

Common situations: Typical dev compose files build locally without tagging (`build: .` only); attempting to publish a dev-oriented stack; adding a new service and forgetting the image: tag.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of docker/compose@ddc4b044b6 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6dc766ab4fe89f98. Report an issue: GitHub.