Linuxcontainers

Lidarr Docker Compose (Music for the Arr Stack)

A ready-to-run docker-compose service for Lidarr — the music manager that reuses your Prowlarr indexers and download client to grab, tag, and file albums automatically.

Distrosubuntu, debian
Shellyaml
Updated
Compose file
yaml
# docker-compose service for Lidarr — music for the arr stack. Shares the
# SAME /data media root as the rest of the stack so imports are instant
# hardlinks. Indexers come from Prowlarr; add this beside your arr services.
services:
  lidarr:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/lidarr:latest
    container_name: lidarr
    environment:
      - PUID=1000            # match the user that owns your media files
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=America/New_York  # your timezone
    ports:
      - "8686:8686"
    volumes:
      - /opt/lidarr:/config
      - /data:/data          # same mount the download client + arr apps use
    restart: unless-stopped

What this does

Runs Lidarr, the music member of the Arr stack. Lidarr works like Sonarr but for artists and albums: it identifies music against MusicBrainz, searches the indexers Prowlarr syncs to it, downloads matches through your existing client, and imports them tagged and renamed into your library. The full walkthrough — Prowlarr registration, quality profiles, and metadata options — is in Lidarr: Automate Your Music Library Like Sonarr.

What this stack is for
Everything in this guide automates managing and streaming media you have the rights to — your own rips, DRM-free purchases, home video, Linux ISOs, and public-domain or Creative Commons releases. Downloading copyrighted material you haven't paid for is illegal in most places, and it isn't what this guide teaches. What you point these tools at is on you.

Prerequisites

Deploy

Add the service above to your existing media docker-compose.yml, then:

bash

docker compose up -d lidarr
docker compose logs -f lidarr

Open http://<host-ip>:8686. Then register Lidarr in Prowlarr under Settings → Apps → Add → Lidarr so indexers sync automatically, add your download client under Settings → Download Clients, and set a root folder (e.g. /data/media/music) and quality profile under Settings → Media Management.

Notes

  • Make these values your own before running: PUID/PGID (match the user that owns your media), TZ (your timezone), /opt/lidarr (host config path), /data (same mount the download client and other Arr apps use), and the Prowlarr/download-client API keys you enter in the UI (keep them in your secret store, never in a note). If a value looks specific to one machine, it’s a placeholder to change — not a literal to copy.
  • Let Prowlarr push indexers in — don’t add them to Lidarr directly. Register Lidarr as an app in Prowlarr and every music-capable indexer syncs automatically.
  • Thin music results are an indexer problem. General movie/TV indexers carry little music; add music-specialist indexers in Prowlarr rather than tuning Lidarr.
  • MusicBrainz is the source of truth. A release that isn’t in MusicBrainz yet won’t match until its entry exists; Lidarr picks up corrections on its next refresh.
  • Keep PUID/PGID identical across the stack so imports don’t hit permission errors.
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