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[AstraLuma]

How should I select the right command to call, if different installations have different invocations?

I'm specifically looking at podman-compose, docker-compose, and docker compose, and which one to call is going to vary.

How do I check what programs are installed and select one?

[runeimp]

Is docker-compose ever the only choice without docker compose being an option? Commands that support subcommands often allow for external subcommands by prefixing the subcommand name with the command name ala commandname-subcommand so calling commandname subcommand checks for subcommand as an internal function and if that isn't found checks PATH for commandname-subcommand.

To answer your question; shell scripting of some sort? Something like the following...

compose *args:
	#!/bin/sh

	if [ "$(which podman-compose; echo $?)" -eq 0 ]; then
		podman-compose podman-specific-argument {{args}}
	elif [ "$(which docker-compose; echo $?)" -eq 0 ]; then
		docker-compose docker-specific-argument {{args}}
	elif [ "$(which docker; echo $?)" -eq 0 ]; then
		docker compose docker-specific-argument {{args}}
	else
		echo "Sorry no composability commands found"
	fi

Or maybe using Nu or whatever cross-platform shell you use.

[AstraLuma]

docker compose isn't valid for older versions (I'd have to look when it was added).

[AstraLuma]

That sample is ok for one recipe, but it gets annoying if you have 3 or 5 recipes that all do compose-based manipulations.