knksmith57/dockerized-nodejs-shared-dependencies

overview

Demo multi-container local development setup for node.js applications using a shared volume with a file watcher to add externally managed dependencies to a canned build image.

quickstart

$ git clone gh:knksmith57/dockerized-nodejs-shared-dependencies \
    dockerized-nodejs-shared-dependencies \
  && cd $_

$ docker-compose up

how it works

1. build container is designed to simulate a black box dev tool image capable of performing webpack builds
2. dependencies container runs a process watcher that install npm dependencies any time the local package.json file changes
3. a shared volume is mounted between the build and dependencies containers. dependencies installs node_modules into it, and build is able to load those installed packages because the volume is mounted at /node_modules, which the built-in node.js module loader will load from.

In this particular example, style-loader and css-loader are not provided by the black box dev tool image. Instead, the host application specifies them as devDependencies in its package.json.

The webpack process, running inside the build container, is configured to use these loaders via webpack.config.js, and resolves those package dependencies to /node_modules/{style-loader,css-loader}, which are installed via the npm install command running inside of dependencies.