Afaik you don’t need the depends_on at all, it’s basically implied. If you configure the container to use gluetun’s network, it shouldn’t just bypass it even if there’s any problem with the gluetun container. The gluetun documentation also says to just use network_mode: container:gluetun, even when connecting from a divergent compose.yaml. if you want to be sure, maybe test out what happens if that gluetun is down.