docker-compose is not a production stand-in — and here's the receipt
Chapter 2 of a local-Kubernetes series. The thesis is opinionated on purpose: a production-like local environment is not one where everything is like prod — it's one where you know exactly what matches, what doesn't, and why.
Key takeaways
"Production-like" ≠ "a copy of prod." You can't fit prod on a laptop and you don't need to. The goal is deliberately narrowing the dev/prod gap so packaging and deployment bugs get caught on your machine.
The gap has a name. Twelve-Factor's tenth factor (Dev/prod parity) calls out three gaps — time, personnel, and tools. It's the tools gap that makes "worked in dev, failed in prod."
