Aspire do prepare-compose + aspire do push generate different tags

[thomasreuvers]

I'm using aspire do prepare-compose to generate my docker-compose.yaml with the correct credentials and image tags, then aspire do push to push images to a self-hosted GitLab container registry. The push works fine, but prepare-compose ignores my custom tag and instead generates datetime-based tags like 20262058. This means when I run docker compose up, it tries to pull images that don't exist in the registry.

Here's my setup:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
var imageTag = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("IMAGE_TAG") ?? "dev"; // commit SHA in CI

var compose = builder.AddDockerComposeEnvironment("compose")
    .WithDashboard(dashboard => dashboard.WithHostPort(8080));

var registry = builder.AddContainerRegistry(
        "gitlab",
        "gitlab..nl:5050",
        "namespace/project")
    .WithImagePushOptions(options => options.Options.RemoteImageTag = imageTag);

My understanding is that WithImagePushOptions controls what tag gets pushed, but prepare-compose seems to have its own tag generation logic that doesn't respect it. So the compose file and the registry end up out of sync.

Is there a way to make prepare-compose use the same tag? Am I missing something in the API, or is this a bug/limitation?

---

As a workaround I'm currently doing a sed replace on the generated file, but that's obviously not ideal:

IMAGE_TAG=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
aspire do prepare-compose
sed -i "s|:20[0-9]\{6\}|:$IMAGE_TAG|g" docker-compose.yaml
aspire do push

[davidfowl]

Try WithImagePushOptions on the project itself, not the container registry

[thomasreuvers]

I changed it to that but still different tags were generating. I currently fixed it like this but I don't think this is a good solution. Rather a hacky fix.

using Api.BrightBlue.AppHost.Extensions;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var imageTag = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("IMAGE_TAG") ?? "dev"; // Use commit-sha as image tag

var compose = builder.AddDockerComposeEnvironment("compose")
    .WithDashboard(dashboard => dashboard.WithHostPort(8080))
    .ConfigureComposeFile(conf =>
    {
        foreach (var svc in conf.Services.Values)
        {
            svc.Restart =
                "unless-stopped"; // Ensure services are restarted automatically if they crash or the host restarts
        }

        if (conf.Services.TryGetValue("migrations", out var migrationService))
        {
            migrationService.Restart = "no";
        }

        if (conf.Services.TryGetValue("compose-dashboard", out var dash))
        {
            dash.Restart = "always";
        }
    });

var registry = builder.AddContainerRegistry(
    "gitlab",
    "gitlab.nl:5050",
    "{namespace}/{project}");

var postgres = builder.AddPostgres("postgres")
    .WithEndpointProxySupport(false)
    .WithEndpoint("tcp", e =>
    {
        e.Port = 5432;
        e.TargetPort = 5432;
        e.IsExternal = true;
    })
    .WithHostPort(5432)
    .WithImage("paradedb/paradedb", "latest-pg17")
    .WithDataVolume(name: "pgdata", isReadOnly: false)
    .WithLifetime(ContainerLifetime.Persistent);

var db = postgres.AddDatabase("{database}", "{database_name}");

var migrationService = builder.AddProject<Project>("migrations")
    .WithReference(db)
    .WaitFor(db)
    .WithContainerRegistry(registry)
    .WithImagePushOptions(options => options.Options.RemoteImageTag = imageTag);

builder.Build().Run();

container_publish_gitlab_registry:
  stage: publish
  <<: *default_vars
  before_script:
    - $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
    - $env:PATH = "$env:USERPROFILE\.aspire\bin;$env:PATH"
    - aspire --version

    # Docker registry login (runner side)
    - |
      $env:DOCKER_DEPLOY_TOKEN | docker login $env:CI_REGISTRY -u $env:DOCKER_DEPLOY_USER --password-stdin
  script:
    - $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
    - $env:IMAGE_TAG = $env:CI_COMMIT_SHA

    # 1) Build and push images to GitLab Registry
    - aspire do push --project "$env:API_DIR/Api.BrightBlue.AppHost/Api.BrightBlue.AppHost.csproj" --environment "$env:ASPIRE_ENV" --non-interactive --log-level information

    # 2) Prepare compose file
    - aspire do prepare-compose --project "$env:API_DIR/Api.Project.AppHost/Api.Project.AppHost.csproj" --environment "$env:ASPIRE_ENV" -o "$env:ASPIRE_OUTPUT_DIR" --log-level information
    
    # Patch the generated .env so image tags match what was pushed (commit SHA)
    - |
      $envFile = Join-Path $env:ASPIRE_OUTPUT_DIR ".env"
      if (-not (Test-Path -LiteralPath $envFile)) { throw "Expected .env at $envFile" }

      $tag = $env:CI_COMMIT_SHA
      (Get-Content -LiteralPath $envFile -Raw) `
        -replace ':(aspire-deploy-\d{14})', (":$tag") |
        Set-Content -LiteralPath $envFile -Encoding ascii

      Write-Host "Patched .env image tags to :$tag"
  artifacts:
    when: always
    expire_in: 1 day
    paths:
      - aspire-output/
  <<: *rules_publish_deploy
  tags: [latest]

[davidfowl]

cc @eerhardt @mitchdenny @IEvangelist

[eerhardt]

The problematic code appears to be here:

https://github.com/dotnet/aspire/blob/5b9f8167456454515a463693f8661c1abe7e07a6/src/Aspire.Hosting.Docker/DockerComposeServiceResource.cs#L134-L145

This isn't respecting the annotation and instead returning the placeholder to be filled in by the parameter.

@thomasreuvers - can you open an issue for this?

[davidfowl]

done #15057