Ship troubleshooting

Ship stops before changing production when a local tool or server check fails. Follow the Next: line in the error first. Each error links to its section here.

Docker engine#

Ship prints this when the Docker CLI cannot reach the container engine used for local image builds:

Docker cannot reach your container engine.

Start or restart the engine, using the command that matches your setup.

Colima#

colima restart

Podman machine#

podman machine restart

Docker Desktop#

Open Docker Desktop. If it already reports running, restart it from the Docker Desktop menu.

Then verify the connection:

docker info

A working connection prints both Client and Server sections. Once it does, retry:

bun ship

If the engine says it is already running#

A running VM can still have a stale or missing Docker socket. Restarting the engine recreates that connection. This briefly stops local containers but preserves their images, volumes, and engine VM state.

If Docker still cannot connect#

Check which endpoint the Docker CLI selected:

docker context ls
docker context inspect

The active context has an asterisk in docker context ls. DOCKER_HOST or DOCKER_CONTEXT can override that selection. Check for either variable:

env | grep -E '^DOCKER_(HOST|CONTEXT)='

Fix the selected context or environment override, then rerun docker info before bun ship.

Current reviewed Ship source: ship.ts.