## Microservice Orchestration Auditing
When deploying microservices via `docker-compose`, managing the `depends_on` relationships with condition flags like `service_healthy` is critical to prevent cascading boot failures where application nodes crash before their database dependencies are ready to accept connections.
### FAQ
**Q: Does depends_on wait for the application to be 'ready'?**
A: By default, no. It only waits until the container is running. To wait for application readiness, use `depends_on` with `condition: service_healthy` alongside a defined healthcheck.
**Q: How does this optimize boot time?**
A: By mapping a Dependency Acyclic Graph (DAG), Docker can group independent containers into 'tiers' and boot them concurrently, saving massive amounts of initialization time.