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Running `prefect agent docker start`  then `docker ps` , I was thinking I'd see a docker agent as a container but I don't, I only have my prefect server. Did I misunderstand something about the "docker" agent or is something wrong with my setup ?

From <https://docs.prefect.io/orchestration/agents/docker.html>:
&gt; The Docker agent executes flow runs in individual Docker containers
Never used it myself but to me that implies that the agent _itself_ isn't running in a docker container, it's running as a standalone process on the machine where you ran `prefect agent docker start` . If the agent gets a flow run to execute, it will spin up a docker container, and inside that container is where the logic for that flow run will execute. This way you could have one agent potentially spinning up many docker containers all running simultaneously.

If you prefer to have the agent itself, along with all flows the agent might execute, running in one single docker container, you can do that (you'd set the container to just run `prefect agent local start` on creation). That approach works fine for us and our relatively lightweight setup.

Thanks a lot ! Didn't catch that nuance !