Swagger UI

What is Swagger UI?

Swagger UI renders an OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) specification as interactive, browsable API documentation, complete with a "try it out" panel for firing real requests at your API. Laradock builds it from the official swaggerapi/swagger-ui image.

Start Swagger UI

Laradock CLI

./laradock start swagger-ui

Docker Compose

docker compose up -d swagger-ui

Swagger UI is stateless, it doesn't store any data of its own, it just renders whatever spec SWAGGER_API_URL points at.

Stop Swagger UI

Laradock CLI

./laradock stop swagger-ui

Docker Compose

docker compose stop swagger-ui

To delete the container entirely (nothing to lose, there's no data volume):

Laradock CLI

./laradock remove swagger-ui

Docker Compose

docker compose rm -sf swagger-ui

Configuration

All settings live in swagger-ui/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
SWAGGER_API_URL	http://generator.swagger.io/api/swagger.json	The URL Swagger UI fetches its OpenAPI spec from, passed into the container as the API_URL environment variable.
SWAGGER_UI_PORT	5555	Host-side port Swagger UI is published on (host:8080, the UI listens on 8080 inside the container).

Point it at your own API spec

SWAGGER_API_URL=http://your-app.test/api/openapi.json

Laradock CLI

./laradock restart swagger-ui

Docker Compose

docker compose up -d swagger-ui

Open http://localhost:5555 (or your custom SWAGGER_UI_PORT). SWAGGER_API_URL must be reachable from inside the swagger-ui container, so if your spec is served by another Laradock container, use its container name (for example http://nginx/api/openapi.json) rather than localhost.

View logs

Useful when the UI shows a blank page or a spec fails to load:

Laradock CLI

./laradock logs swagger-ui

Docker Compose

docker compose logs --tail=100 swagger-ui

Keep the image up to date

Laradock builds Swagger UI FROM swaggerapi/swagger-ui:latest. Docker only pulls the latest tag the first time it's built, a plain rebuild reuses whatever was already pulled and won't fetch newer releases. To actually pull the newest upstream image and rebuild against it:

docker compose build --pull swagger-ui

Then start the container again with your normal ./laradock start swagger-ui (or docker compose up -d swagger-ui).

Common issues

• Still showing the default demo spec. SWAGGER_API_URL only takes effect on container start. Set it in .env and run ./laradock restart swagger-ui to apply it.
• "Failed to fetch" when loading your spec. If your API lives in another Laradock container, localhost from inside swagger-ui refers to the swagger-ui container itself, not your host or your API container. Use the API's container name instead (Laradock containers share the backend network).
• CORS errors in the browser console. Swagger UI fetches the spec client-side from your browser, not just server-side, so your API must also send CORS headers allowing the origin http://localhost:5555 (or your custom port).
• Port already in use on your host. Another service (or another Laradock project) is already bound to 5555. Change SWAGGER_UI_PORT in .env and restart with ./laradock restart swagger-ui.
• Image never picks up a newer Swagger UI release. See Keep the image up to date above, latest is only resolved once unless you explicitly --pull.

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Writing the spec by hand? See Swagger Editor. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.