Why Docker Compose Falls Short as a Production-Like Kubernetes Dev Environment

A technical guide argues that docker-compose cannot substitute for a production-like local Kubernetes setup because it fails to validate real manifests, ignores key configurations like probes and resource limits, and exposes secrets as plain environment variables. The author, drawing on the Twelve-Factor App's tenth principle, identifies the tools gap as the primary cause of bugs that appear in production but not in development. True dev/prod parity requires matching the same Kubernetes minor version, identical backing service types and versions, and the actual deployment manifests used in production. The guide highlights practical pitfalls such as Docker tag formatting restrictions for version-pinning and recommends using sha256 digests when working with kind. It concludes with a checklist to help developers assess how closely their local environment mirrors production.