Docker and Docker Compose for frontend and Node.js development

This repo contains a minimal Docker setup with reasonable defaults for development with Node.js.

Read the article that explains more about optimizations and isolating host's node modules from the container: https://michalzalecki.com/docker-compose-node/

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App, but it doesn't matter. Whether you have a build step for your backend code, or you bundle your frontend application, the goals are similar when using Docker:

1. For development, reload code when you modify it locally to test the changes (npm run start)
2. Isolate container and host node_modules, so native dependencies don't mix
3. For production, use a lightweight container with minimal dependencies (npm run build)

Use Docker

For production

# build the image
docker build -t docker-compose-node .

# run the container
docker run -it --rm -p 8080:80 docker-compose-node

# execute command in running docker container
docker exec -it $(docker ps -q | head) sh

Use Docker Compose

For development

# build image and run the container
docker compose up -V --build

# execute command in running docker container
docker compose exec app bash
docker compose exec app npm run test

# (optionally) push image to the registry
docker compose push