Installation

Install rft

Install from crates.io using Cargo:

cargo install rft-cli

Verify the installation:

rft --version

Requirements

rft requires the following tools to be available on your system:

• Git with worktree support (Git 2.5+)
• Docker with Compose v2 (docker compose command, not the legacy docker-compose)
• Compose file with ports using ${VAR:-default} format

Compose File Format

rft parses port mappings that use environment variable substitution with defaults. Your docker-compose.yml must use this pattern:

services:
  frontend:
    ports:
      - "${FRONTEND_PORT:-3000}:3000"
  api:
    ports:
      - "${API_PORT:-8080}:8080"
  database:
    ports:
      - "${DB_PORT:-5432}:5432"

The :- syntax tells Docker to use the default value (e.g., 3000) when the environment variable is not set. rft uses these defaults as the base for port allocation.

What Won't Work

Hardcoded ports without environment variables are not managed by rft:

# rft cannot override these
services:
  frontend:
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"

If you have a mix of hardcoded and variable-based ports, rft will manage only the variable-based ones.

Check Your Setup

Run rft init to analyze your compose file and see which ports are managed:

rft init

It will suggest fixes for hardcoded ports and generate a .rftrc.toml config file. See rft init for details.