Running migration on docker container. suppose your compose file looks like

services:
  # cointainer for django app
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: ./Dockerfile
    depends_on:
      - db

Use docker-compose run

Run command manually, The name of Django app container is app

docker-compose run app python manage.py migrate

# use if docker compose file name is other than `docker-compose.yml` 
docker-compose -f production.yml run app python manage.py migrate

Use entrypoint.sh

Run automatically, every time when you up container.

Create a file name entrypoint.sh on project root and copy below command in it.

python manage.py migrate --noinput

In DockerFile copy entrypoint.sh from your project folder into container app.

COPY ./entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh
RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /entrypoint.sh
RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh
RUN chown app /entrypoint.sh

Now there are 2 ways you can make entrypoint.sh run automatically

Mention ENTRYPOINT in DockerFile itself.

ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]

Or you can mention it in docker-compose file with command keyword under app.

app:
   build:
     context: .
     dockerfile: ./Dockerfile
   depends_on:
     - db
   # this will run after cointainer `up`
   command: /entrypoint.sh

We’ve been using Docker in dev and production for over a year now. If I understand your situation correctly the issue is that your production db schema is getting out-of-sync with your development schema over time.

What helped us is to have easily shippable snapshots of our production schema (with some test data) so when you build a dev image you’re running with the production schema and creating migrations based on the prod schema. When you’re satisfied that your schema-to-be-migrated to is solid, check those migrations into source control.

Deployment to prod is then shipping an image with those migrations guaranteed to apply cleanly to the prod schema.