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Launch a Development Environment with Docker Compose

Explore how to launch a Node.js development environment using Docker Compose by building custom images, setting environment variables, mounting host directories, and enabling remote debugging with port exposure.

We'll cover the following...

Docker Compose

Docker Compose can override the image’s default production settings to launch a container in development mode. We will use the following docker-compose.yml:

YAML
version: '3'
services:
  nodehello:
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=development
    build:
      context: ./
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    container_name: nodehello
    volumes:
      - ./:/home/node/app
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
      - "9229:9229"
    command: /bin/sh -c 'npm install && npm run debug'

Before we referenced a specific image: from Docker Hub. In this file, a build: option is used to create an image from a Dockerfile:

  • The context: is the relative path to the location of your Dockerfile.
  • The dockerfile: is the name of your Dockerfile.

Additionally:

  1. The container name is set to nodehello.
  2. The NODE_ENV environment variable is set to development.

    Sometimes, setting the NODE_ENV is not overridden with Dockerfile (in our case it’s set to production). It’s because, at the building of the image, the environment variables are set as specified in ...