How to show all running containers created by docker-compose, globally, regardless of docker-compose.yml

Docker compose adds labels to each container that it creates. If you want to get all containers created by compose, you can perform a container ls and apply a filter.

docker container ls --filter label=com.docker.compose.project

This will show all running container created by compose, regardless of the project name.

For example, I created some containers from different compose projects. With the filter, I get only those, but no other container that have not been created by compose and therefore don't have a project label.

$ base='{{.Status}}\t{{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Ports}}\t{{.Networks}}\t{{.Mounts}}'
$ compose='{{.Label "com.docker.compose.project"}}\t{{.Label "com.docker.compose.service"}}'

$ docker container ls --all \
  --filter label=com.docker.compose.project \
  --format "table $compose\t$base"

project        service     STATUS                      CONTAINER ID   NAMES                IMAGE                   PORTS                                                                     NETWORKS               MOUNTS
kafka          kafka       Up 5 minutes                3f97a460266e   kafka_kafka_1        bitnami/kafka:3         0.0.0.0:9092->9092/tcp, :::9092->9092/tcp                                 kafka_default          kafka_kafka_da…,kafka_kafa_con…
kafka          zookeeper   Up 5 minutes                0b6f32ccd196   kafka_zookeeper_1    bitnami/zookeeper:3.7   2888/tcp, 3888/tcp, 0.0.0.0:2181->2181/tcp, :::2181->2181/tcp, 8080/tcp   kafka_default          kafka_zookeepe…
manager        db          Up 22 minutes               4f0e799b4fd7   manager_db_1         da2cb49d7a8d            5432/tcp                                                                  manager_default        0d667a0e48a280…
foo            db          Exited (0) 37 minutes ago   e106c5cdbf5e   foo_db_1             da2cb49d7a8d                                                                                      foo_default            5a87e93627b8f6…
foo            backend     Up 10 minutes               08a0873c0587   foo_backend_2        c316d5a335a5            80/tcp                                                                    foo_default            
foo            frontend    Up 10 minutes               be723bf41aeb   foo_frontend_1       c316d5a335a5            80/tcp                                                                    foo_default            
foo            backend     Up 10 minutes               5d91d4bcfcb3   foo_backend_1        c316d5a335a5            80/tcp                                                                    foo_default            
manager        app         Up 22 minutes               2ca4c0920807   manager_app_1        c316d5a335a5            80/tcp                                                                    manager_default        
manager        app         Up 22 minutes               b2fa2b9724b0   manager_app_2        c316d5a335a5            80/tcp                                                                    manager_default        
loadbalancer   app         Exited (0) 37 minutes ago   791f4059b4af   loadbalancer_app_1   c316d5a335a5                                                                                      loadbalancer_default   

If you want to see all container regardless of their state, you can add the --all or short -a flag to the ls command, like I did in my example. Otherwise, only running containers are shown.

Here is kind of a guess based on the clues of your question.

When you do run containers via docker-compose up, please do mind that hitting CTRL+C will actually stop your containers.

Here is an example of doing this:

$ docker-compose up
[+] Running 1/0
 ⠿ Container docker-test-1  Created                                  0.0s
Attaching to docker-test-1
^CGracefully stopping... (press Ctrl+C again to force)
[+] Running 1/1
 ⠿ Container docker-test-1  Stopped                                 10.2s
canceled

The important part here being: ^CGracefully stopping...

If you want to keep them running, you will have to run docker-compose up in a detached mode, with the help of the -d option.

-d, --detach       Detached mode: Run containers in the background,
                   print new container names. Incompatible with
                   --abort-on-container-exit.

^{Source: https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/up/}

So doing,

docker-compose up -d && docker ps

Should actually give you what you expected.
E.g.:

$ docker-compose up -d && docker ps
[+] Running 2/2
 ⠿ Network docker_default   Created                                                                                   0.1s
 ⠿ Container docker-test-1  Started                                                                                   0.5s
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE     COMMAND               CREATED        STATUS                  PORTS     NAMES
ab9f422247c9   alpine    "tail -f /dev/null"   1 second ago   Up Less than a second             docker-test-1

And if you want to see all container, regardless of their state, you can use the -a option of docker ps.

--all , -a        Show all containers (default shows just running)

^{Source: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/ps/}

E.g.:

$ docker-compose up  
[+] Running 2/2
 ⠿ Network docker_default   Created                                                                                   0.1s
 ⠿ Container docker-test-1  Created                                                                                   0.1s
Attaching to docker-test-1
^CGracefully stopping... (press Ctrl+C again to force)
[+] Running 1/1
 ⠿ Container docker-test-1  Stopped                                                                                  10.2s
canceled
$ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                 COMMAND               CREATED          STATUS                       PORTS     NAMES
615bcc6f1e50   alpine                "tail -f /dev/null"   18 seconds ago   Exited (137) 3 seconds ago             docker-test-1