Orchestrating Metabase And MkDocs: A Simple Guide

Nov 13, 2025 by Alex Johnson 50 views

In today's data-driven world, effectively managing and visualizing data is crucial for making informed decisions. Two powerful tools that can help you achieve this are Metabase and MkDocs. Metabase is an open-source business intelligence tool that allows you to easily create dashboards and visualizations, while MkDocs is a static site generator perfect for creating project documentation. This guide will walk you through the process of orchestrating these two containers to process dashboards and documentation seamlessly.

Understanding the Basics

Before diving into the orchestration, let's briefly understand what each tool offers:

Metabase: This tool connects to your databases and allows you to query data, create charts, and build dashboards. It's designed to be user-friendly, so even non-technical users can gain insights from data.
MkDocs: This is a static site generator that takes Markdown files and turns them into a fully functional website. It's ideal for creating project documentation, API references, and user guides.

By combining these two tools, you can create a comprehensive data and documentation hub for your project. You can use Metabase to visualize your data and MkDocs to document your project's architecture, code, and usage.

Setting Up the Environment

Before we start orchestrating, we need to ensure that our environment is set up correctly. This involves installing the necessary tools and preparing the configuration files.

Install Docker: Docker is a containerization platform that allows you to package applications and their dependencies into isolated containers. This ensures that your applications run consistently across different environments.
- You can download and install Docker from the official Docker website (https://www.docker.com/).
Install Docker Compose: Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. It allows you to define your application's services, networks, and volumes in a single docker-compose.yml file.
- Docker Compose is usually included with Docker Desktop. If you're using Docker Engine, you may need to install it separately.
Create a Project Directory: Create a directory for your project and navigate into it.
```
mkdir my-data-project
cd my-data-project
```
Prepare Metabase Configuration: You'll need to configure Metabase to connect to your data sources. This typically involves setting up a database connection and defining your data models.
- Refer to the Metabase documentation for detailed instructions on how to configure Metabase.
Prepare MkDocs Documentation: Create your MkDocs documentation in Markdown format. You'll need to create a mkdocs.yml file to configure your MkDocs project.
- Refer to the MkDocs documentation for detailed instructions on how to create and configure MkDocs projects.

Orchestrating Metabase and MkDocs with Docker Compose

Now that we have our environment set up, we can start orchestrating Metabase and MkDocs using Docker Compose. This involves creating a docker-compose.yml file that defines our Metabase and MkDocs services.

Creating the `docker-compose.yml` File

Create a file named docker-compose.yml in your project directory. This file will define the services, networks, and volumes for our application.

version: "3.8"

services:
  metabase:
    image: metabase/metabase:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      MB_DB_TYPE: postgres
      MB_DB_HOST: db
      MB_DB_PORT: 5432
      MB_DB_NAME: metabase
      MB_DB_USER: metabase
      MB_DB_PASS: metabase
    depends_on:
      - db
    volumes:
      - metabase_data:/data

  mkdocs:
    image: squidfunk/mkdocs-material:latest
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    volumes:
      - ./docs:/docs
    command: mkdocs serve -a 0.0.0.0:8000

  db:
    image: postgres:13
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: metabase
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: metabase
      POSTGRES_DB: metabase
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  metabase_data:
  db_data:

Let's break down this docker-compose.yml file:

version: Specifies the version of the Docker Compose file format.
services: Defines the services that make up our application.
- metabase: Defines the Metabase service.
  - image: Specifies the Docker image to use for Metabase.
  - ports: Maps port 3000 on the host to port 3000 on the container.
  - environment: Sets environment variables for Metabase, such as the database connection details.
  - depends_on: Specifies that the Metabase service depends on the db service.
  - volumes: Mounts a volume to persist Metabase data.
- mkdocs: Defines the MkDocs service.
  - image: Specifies the Docker image to use for MkDocs.
  - ports: Maps port 8000 on the host to port 8000 on the container.
  - volumes: Mounts the ./docs directory on the host to the /docs directory on the container. This allows MkDocs to serve the documentation from your local files.
  - command: Specifies the command to run when the container starts. In this case, it starts the MkDocs development server.
- db: Defines the PostgreSQL database service.
  - image: Specifies the Docker image to use for PostgreSQL.
  - environment: Sets environment variables for PostgreSQL, such as the username, password, and database name.
  - volumes: Mounts a volume to persist the database data.
volumes: Defines the volumes used by the services.
- metabase_data: A named volume for persisting Metabase data.
- db_data: A named volume for persisting the database data.

Running the Application

Now that we have our docker-compose.yml file, we can run the application using the following command:

docker-compose up -d

This command will start the Metabase, MkDocs, and PostgreSQL services in detached mode. You can then access Metabase at http://localhost:3000 and MkDocs at http://localhost:8000.

Verifying the Setup

Once the containers are running, verify that both Metabase and MkDocs are functioning correctly.

Metabase: Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000. You should see the Metabase setup page. Follow the instructions to connect to your data sources and create your first dashboard.
MkDocs: Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8000. You should see your MkDocs documentation. Verify that the documentation is rendering correctly and that you can navigate between pages.

Making Changes

If you need to make changes to your MkDocs documentation, simply edit the Markdown files in the ./docs directory. MkDocs will automatically reload the changes in your browser.

If you need to make changes to your Metabase configuration, you can do so through the Metabase web interface. You can also modify the docker-compose.yml file to change the environment variables or volumes.

Conclusion

By orchestrating Metabase and MkDocs with Docker Compose, you can create a powerful data and documentation hub for your project. This allows you to easily visualize your data and document your project's architecture, code, and usage. This approach ensures that both the Metabase and MkDocs containers are running correctly and are accessible, streamlining your workflow and enhancing collaboration.

Remember to consult the official documentation for both Metabase and MkDocs for more advanced configurations and features.

For further reading on Docker and containerization, check out the Docker Documentation.