The github.com/docker/compose/v5 library allows leveraging a compose SDK. The inclusion of the SDK directly in windsor would eliminate the external docker-compose cli requirement.
At the moment, the SDK has a transitive dependency on fsevents for watch functionality. This isn't used by the windsor tool, and this package depends on CGO_ENABLED=1 on Darwin builds. This isn't an acceptable trade-off as it swaps one dependency for another. Once docker/compose#13448 has been addressed, reconsider importing and using the SDK.