Docker-compose got it done. Once I learned about Volumes and using compose to pass in volumes from other instances I was able to pass in a directory with a custom yaml to the Dashy container then pass the same directory into the code-server container and both are working as I expected they should. Compose and volumes were the missing pieces. I also learned that stacks is how to use compose in Portainer. Not sure why they felt the need to change the naming but it works.