Node + Docker Compose: Development and production setup

You can create a structure like this:

docker-compose.yml -->
      docker-compose.dev.yml
      docker-compose.prod.yml

Where the base configuration resides in docker-compose.yml, while environment-specific info such as ports or user credentials would be in docker-compose.dev.yml or docker-compose.prod.yml

And then you can run the dev environment with:

docker-compose \
    -f docker-compose.yml \
    -f docker-compose.dev.yml \
    up -d

Or the prod environment with:

docker-compose \
    -f docker-compose.yml \
    -f docker-compose.prod.yml \
    up -d

You can make use of entrypoint and pass the command to the docker container. Then you can use docker-compose inharitance to launch compose for the environment that you want and append command to the entrypoint.

Dockerfile :

FROM node:13-alpine

RUN mkdir /app

WORKDIR /app

COPY . /app

RUN npm install

RUN npm run build

EXPOSE 1234

ENTRYPOINT ["npm", "run"]

Main docker-compose.yml :

version: "3"
services:
    findus:
        build: .
        ports:
            - "1234:1234"
        links:
            - mongo
        container_name: myapp
    mongo:
        image: mongo
        restart: always
        ports:
            - "4444:4444"

And then have two docker-compose files to append the command passed to the image entry point. For development - docker-compose.dev.yml :

version: "3"
services:
    findus:
        command: dev

and docker-compose.prod.yml :

version: "3"
services:
    findus:
        command: prod

Then to launch dev environment :

docker-compose  -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up    

and for prod environment :

docker-compose  -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml up   

So the command will be appended to the ENTRYPOINT instruction.

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Also this approach could work with enviroment variables if you wanted to pass the command as environment variable. You can find more information in the docs.