Same Dockerfile for Production and Development

You want your servers to run on docker and you want a consistent developer experience locally.

Great!

1. In your Dockerfile, COPY your source files as normal.
2. Create a docker-compose.yml file that mounts a volume from the host machine to the source directory (overriding the COPY from the dockerfile). Override the command inside docker-compose.yml as needed.

Build normally for production.
Use docker-compose up --build for development on your host machine.

Example:

Dockerfile

FROM node:alpine
WORKDIR /api
COPY package.json .
COPY yarn.lock .
RUN yarn install
COPY . /api

CMD ["node", "src/index.js"]

docker-compose.yml

version: '3.6'
services:
  api:
    build: .
    volumes:
      - ./src:/api/src
    command: npx nodemon src/index.js