Halfstack

Halfstack Troubleshooting & Fix

Diagnose and directly fix issues with the Docker Compose halfstack development environment.

When to Use

• Docker Compose services fail to start or keep restarting
• Config files are missing, stale, or have wrong port/secret values
• Supergraph schema needs regeneration after GQL changes
• Need to inspect DB, Valkey, or etcd state directly
• Halfstack needs to be brought up after a fresh clone or branch switch

Compose File

The runtime compose file is always docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml (project root). It is generated from docker-compose.halfstack-main.yml (or halfstack-ha.yml for HA mode).

Quick Reference Commands

# Check all halfstack services
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps

# Check a specific service's logs
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml logs <service-name>

# Restart a specific service
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml restart <service-name>

# Bring everything up
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml up -d --wait

Service Names & Profiles

Optional services are gated behind Docker Compose profiles. By default (docker compose up -d) only the required services start. To include optional ones, pass --profile <name>.

Profile semantics:

• telemetry — service-level export only (otel-collector + loki). Visualisation (Grafana) and supporting backends (Tempo, Pyroscope, exporters) are typically managed centrally; this profile is a good default for dev installs that just want their logs and traces forwarded.
• observability — superset of telemetry. Brings up the full local stack including Grafana / Tempo / Pyroscope / exporters.
• storage — MinIO only.

Enabling optional profiles

# Required only (default)
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml up -d --wait

# + telemetry export (OTel collector + Loki forwarding logs/traces to a central monitor)
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml --profile telemetry up -d --wait

# + full observability stack (Grafana / Tempo / Pyroscope / exporters in addition to telemetry)
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml --profile observability up -d --wait

# + object storage (MinIO)
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml --profile storage up -d --wait

# Everything
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml --profile observability --profile storage up -d --wait

When stopping/removing, profile flags must also be passed for those containers to be torn down:

docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml --profile observability --profile storage down

scripts/delete-dev.sh already passes both profiles so a clean wipe works regardless of what was enabled.

Docker Configs — Files That Must Exist in Project Root

The compose file declares a configs: section. Docker Compose reads these as files. If a file is missing when docker compose up runs, Docker creates a directory at that path instead. Once a directory exists where a file should be, even copying the correct file won't help — the directory must be removed first.

Fix Procedure for Missing Config Files

Step 1: Stop affected services (or all services):

docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml down

Step 2: Check and remove any directories that should be files:

# These MUST be regular files, not directories
for f in prometheus.yaml otel-collector-config.yaml loki-config.yaml \
         tempo-config.yaml supergraph.graphql gateway.config.ts; do
  [ -d "$f" ] && rm -rf "$f" && echo "Removed directory: $f"
done

# These MUST be directories
for d in grafana-dashboards grafana-provisioning; do
  [ -f "$d" ] && rm -f "$d" && echo "Removed file: $d"
done

Step 3: Copy config files from source (same as scripts/install-dev.sh):

# Docker Compose configs (plain copy, no transformation)
cp configs/prometheus/prometheus.yaml ./prometheus.yaml
cp configs/otel/otel-collector-config.yaml ./otel-collector-config.yaml
cp configs/loki/loki-config.yaml ./loki-config.yaml
cp configs/tempo/tempo-config.yaml ./tempo-config.yaml
cp configs/graphql/gateway.config.ts ./gateway.config.ts

# Supergraph — generated, but can be copied from last known-good
cp docs/manager/graphql-reference/supergraph.graphql ./supergraph.graphql

# Grafana (recursive directory copy)
cp -r configs/grafana/dashboards ./grafana-dashboards
cp -r configs/grafana/provisioning ./grafana-provisioning

Step 4: Ensure volume directories exist:

mkdir -p volumes/postgres-data
mkdir -p volumes/etcd-data
mkdir -p volumes/redis-data

Step 5: Bring services back up:

docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml up -d --wait

Config Source Mapping Reference

Missing or Stale Compose File

If docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml doesn't exist or is outdated:

cp docker-compose.halfstack-main.yml docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml

Then apply port substitutions. Read existing component toml files to determine current ports, or use defaults from scripts/install-dev.sh:

Note: The source template has 8100/8110/8120 but install-dev.sh defaults are 8101/8111/8121. Always check existing config files first to determine the correct port.

Supergraph / Hive Gateway

The Hive Gateway serves the federated GraphQL schema. Regenerate when:

• GQL schema types or fields change
• New GQL modules are added
• v2 schema is modified

# 1. Generate new schemas and supergraph
./scripts/generate-graphql-schema.sh

# 2. Copy to project root (where compose expects it)
cp docs/manager/graphql-reference/supergraph.graphql ./supergraph.graphql
cp configs/graphql/gateway.config.ts ./gateway.config.ts

# 3. Recreate the gateway (docker configs are baked in at container creation,
#    so `restart` would keep serving the old schema)
docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml up -d --force-recreate --wait backendai-half-apollo-router

Steps 1-3 in one command: ./scripts/refresh-graphql-gateway.sh --recreate (without --recreate it only restarts the container, which keeps the old schema).

If manager code is broken and generate-graphql-schema.sh fails, copy the last known-good supergraph from git:

git show main:docs/manager/graphql-reference/supergraph.graphql > ./supergraph.graphql

Direct Service Inspection

PostgreSQL

PGCONTAINER=$(docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps -q backendai-half-db)

# Interactive psql
docker exec -it -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d backend

# Non-interactive query
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d backend -c "SELECT version();"

# Check databases
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -tc "SELECT datname FROM pg_database;"

# Check alembic migration version (manager)
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d backend -c "SELECT * FROM alembic_version;"

# Check alembic migration version (appproxy)
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d appproxy -c "SELECT * FROM alembic_version;"

# List tables
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d backend -c "\dt"

Common fix — appproxy DB missing:

docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -c "CREATE DATABASE appproxy;"
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -c "CREATE ROLE appproxy WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'develove';"
docker exec -e PGPASSWORD=develove $PGCONTAINER psql -U postgres -d appproxy -c "GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO appproxy;"
./py -m alembic -c alembic-appproxy.ini upgrade head

Valkey

REDIS_CONTAINER=$(docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps -q backendai-half-redis)

# Ping
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli ping

# Info
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli info server
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli dbsize

# List keys (dev only)
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli keys '*'

# Get/check specific key
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli get <key>
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli type <key>

# Flush all (destructive)
docker exec $REDIS_CONTAINER valkey-cli flushall

etcd

ETCD_CONTAINER=$(docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps -q backendai-half-etcd)

# List all keys
docker exec $ETCD_CONTAINER etcdctl get --prefix "" --keys-only

# Get specific key
docker exec $ETCD_CONTAINER etcdctl get <key>

# Common key prefixes
docker exec $ETCD_CONTAINER etcdctl get --prefix "config/redis"
docker exec $ETCD_CONTAINER etcdctl get --prefix "volumes"

# Health check
docker exec $ETCD_CONTAINER etcdctl endpoint health

Or via Backend.AI CLI:

./backend.ai mgr etcd get --prefix ''
./backend.ai mgr etcd get config/redis/addr
./backend.ai mgr etcd put config/redis/addr "127.0.0.1:8111"

MinIO

MINIO_CONTAINER=$(docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps -q backendai-half-minio)

# Health check
docker exec $MINIO_CONTAINER curl -sf http://localhost:9000/minio/health/live

# List buckets (set alias first)
docker exec $MINIO_CONTAINER mc alias set local http://localhost:9000 minioadmin minioadmin
docker exec $MINIO_CONTAINER mc ls local/

# Web console: http://127.0.0.1:9001 (minioadmin / minioadmin)

Component Config Files — Port/Secret Consistency

These config files live in the project root and are generated from configs/ templates.

Cross-Config Consistency Rules

• PG port in compose must match manager.toml, alembic.ini, account-manager.toml, app-proxy-coordinator.toml, alembic-appproxy.ini
• Valkey port in compose must match app-proxy-coordinator.toml, app-proxy-worker.toml, webserver.conf
• etcd port in compose must match manager.toml, agent.toml, storage-proxy.toml
• App Proxy secrets: app-proxy-coordinator.toml and app-proxy-worker.toml must share identical api_secret, jwt_secret, permit_hash.secret
• Manager ↔ Storage Proxy: the volume auth secret in etcd (set via dev.etcd.volumes.json) must match storage-proxy.toml's [api.manager] secret

Regenerating a Component Config

When regenerating, read existing secret values from the current config file and reuse them. Only generate new secrets (python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))') when the config file doesn't exist at all.

Reference scripts/install-dev.sh lines 1016–1142 for the exact sed substitution patterns per component.

Diagnostic Workflow

When halfstack issues are reported, follow this order:

1. Check compose file exists: ls -la docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml
2. Check service status: docker compose -f docker-compose.halfstack.current.yml ps
3. For exited/unhealthy services: read logs with docker compose ... logs <service>
4. For config-dependent services (prometheus, otel, loki, tempo, gateway):
   • Verify referenced files exist in project root and are files, not directories
   • If a directory exists where a file should be: stop service → rm -rf <dir> → copy correct file → restart
5. For Backend.AI components (manager, agent, etc.): verify .toml/.conf exists and ports match compose
6. For DB issues: connect to PostgreSQL directly and check schema/data
7. For Valkey/etcd issues: connect directly and inspect state
8. Fix the root cause directly — don't just report the problem.