Few weeks before now, I boostrapped a NodeJS codebase using Docker as part of the requirement was that new team member should be able to get up and running as soon as possible. I came up with a Dockerfile that looked like the below:

# Base Image.
# This image already exists in dockerhub.
# We are just extending its functionalities
FROM node:10
# Already created by the node image 
USER node
# Changes directory in the container to this directory
WORKDIR /home/node/app

# Copy package.json and package-lock.json to allow using cached packages
COPY package*.json ./

# Install node dependencies
RUN npm install

# Copy source files to working directory
COPY . .

# Port that the node app will listen to
EXPOSE 5000

Little did I know that some dependencies were missing until I started implementing authentication and password hashing using argon2 package, node-gyp installation started to fail. To get the docker file running, I did some Googling to find this Stackoverflow answer , and my new and working docker file looks like the below:

# Base Image.
# This image already exists in dockerhub.
# We are just extending its functionalities
FROM node:10-alpine

RUN apk add g++ make python

RUN apk add --no-cache --virtual .build-deps make gcc g++ python \
    && npm install --production --silent \
    && apk del .build-deps

# Create and set working directory for image
WORKDIR /app

# Copy package.json and package-lock.json to allow using cached packages
COPY package*.json ./

# Install node dependencies
RUN npm install

# Copy source files to working directory
COPY . .

# Port that the node app will listen to
EXPOSE 5000