Docker Best Practices for Production

Containerization has revolutionized application deployment. Here are essential Docker best practices.

Multi-Stage Builds

# Build stage
FROM node:18 AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

# Production stage
FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
CMD ["node", "dist/server.js"]

Security Tips

1. Use official base images
2. Run as non-root user
3. Scan images for vulnerabilities
4. Keep images updated

Image Optimization

• Minimize layers
• Use .dockerignore
• Clean up in the same layer
• Use specific tags, not latest

Production-ready containers make all the difference!