Short answer - usually no, but it depends.

Generally speaking, the project you work on is run (via docker-compose) in “development mode” that (most of the time) supports some form of automatic code reloading.

When it comes to the frontend code (which uses the create-react-app) template, hot-reloading is enabled by default. Whenever you make a change, the code is automatically reloaded in the browser without needing to do anything.

For the backend, depending on the language and framework, app code changes can be tested immediately by making a new request to the server (for example, by refreshing the page in the browser, which causes a new network request to the backend app, among other things).

However, in some cases, mostly when changing environment variables or server-side configurations, the server needs to be started again. In these cases, stopping and starting the docker-compose process is required.

If you made changes and you do not see them reflected after refreshing a page or making a new request, it might be a good idea to stop and start docker-compose and give it another try.