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Running Mephisto with Docker

You may want to keep Mephisto environment entirely contained, and set it up with just a few commands. To do this, we support Docker and Docker Compose as a launch option.

Installation​

Install Docker and Docker Compose using the official guide. You can learn about Docker Compose commands on its documentation page.

Running form-based task example​

docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.dev.yml run \
  --build \
  --publish 3001:3000 \
  --rm mephisto_dc \
  python /mephisto/examples/form_composer_demo/run_task.py

Customizing Docker settings​

All docker settings you can find in docker directory.

Files and directories:

  • docker-compose.dev.yml - minimal development Docker Compose config to start all our examples and apps
  • docker-compose.dev.vscode.yml - same as previous, but set up with Python-debugger for VS Code as it requires extra settings
  • aws_credentials.example - example of the structure of file aws_credentials; this file is mounted into ~/.aws/credentials file inside dockerized environment
  • entrypoints - directory with entrypoint scripts (used to run commands at launching of a Docker container)
    • server.mturk.sh - example for MTurk
    • server.prolific.sh - example for Prolific
  • envs - directory with environmental variales for the dockerized environment
    • env.dev - lists env variables you may need for Mephisto (populate these empty values according to your needs)

If you want to customize Docker configs (e.g. use your AWS credentials), we recommend you to create these files, and save your customizations in them:

  • server.local.sh in entrypoints
  • env.local in envs
  • docker-compose.local.yml config next to the standard docker-compose.dev.yml (and point it to server.local.sh and env.local files)

Now you can enable your Docker customizations simply by specifying -f docker/docker-compose.local.yml parameter in all Docker Compose commands. For example:

docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.local.yml run \
  --build \
  --publish 3001:3000 \
  --rm mephisto_dc \
  python /mephisto/examples/form_composer_demo/run_task.py