@pleeplop thanks for the suggestion 🙌

That is a known issue with Compose versions below v1.26.0. For this reason, we only support Compose v1.26.0 and above.

Extract from the README:

Host setup

• Docker Compose version 1.26.0 or newer

Versions between v1.22.0 and v1.25.5 are known to work as well, but require omitting quotes like you suggested:

# .env
ELASTIC_VERSION=8.0.0
ELASTIC_PASSWORD=changeme
LOGSTASH_INTERNAL_PASSWORD=changeme
KIBANA_SYSTEM_PASSWORD=changeme

I have to reject this PR because we don't want to remove quotes from the default .env file for the following reasons:

1. bin/elasticsearch-reset-password generates passwords with special characters ($#?!=...), which makes quoting necessary in some cases (see Kibana exits due to changed password in config #667).

   For example, an .env file with unquoted values containing special characters would cause issues with tools that read .env files using a shell (such as direnv)

2. This is only an issue with unsupported versions of Compose.

   v1.25.0 is two years old and we can't possibly keep supporting old versions forever. The issue with .env files is one reason for this. Bumping the format version of Compose files is another one.

A few references:

• Inconsistent env var parsing from docker-compose.yml docker/compose#2854
• https://docs.docker.com/compose/release-notes/#1260
• New install cannot authenticate, Compose keeps quotes in passwords read from the .env file #677

It makes sense.
Thank you for the feedback.