How to Provide a Redis Fixture With Compose in CI

A Redis service in Compose gives cache and queue tests a real backend, with a redis-cli ping healthcheck so tests wait for it.

Define a redis service, publish port 6379, and add a redis-cli ping healthcheck so CI blocks until Redis answers before tests connect.

Steps

• Use the official redis image.
• Add a redis-cli ping healthcheck.
• Connect from tests via redis://localhost:6379.

Compose file

services:
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    ports: ["6379:6379"]
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 3s
      retries: 10

Gotchas

• By default this Redis is not persistent; that is usually what you want for isolated CI tests.
• If you enable auth, the ping healthcheck must pass the password or it reports unhealthy.

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