Production Dockerfile example for NestJS projects.

README.md

Let's say you have the following project:

.
├── Dockerfile
├── .dockerignore
├── nest-cli.json
├── package.json
├── package-lock.json
├── README.md
├── src
│   ├── app.controller.ts
│   ├── app.module.ts
│   ├── app.service.ts
│   └── main.ts
├── tsconfig.build.json
└── tsconfig.json

Make sure the main entry of your package.json points to the transpiled code like "main": "./dist/main.js"

You could use that Dockerfile to build the image like this:

docker build . --tag  "my-app:latest" --build-arg PORT=3000

Dockerfile

## ===========================================================> The common stage
FROM node:16.14 AS base
ENV NODE_ENV=production

WORKDIR /app

COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

## Remove unnecessary files from `node_modules` directory
RUN ( wget -q -O /dev/stdout https://gobinaries.com/tj/node-prune | sh ) \
 && node-prune


## ======================================================> The build image stage
FROM base AS build
ENV NODE_ENV=development

COPY . .
## This step could install only the missing dependencies (ie., development deps ones)
## but there's no way to do that with this NPM version
RUN npm ci
## Compile the TypeScript source code
RUN npm run build


## =================================================> The production image stage
FROM node:16.14-alpine3.14 AS prod
ENV NODE_ENV=production

ARG PORT=3000
ENV PORT=$PORT
EXPOSE $PORT

HEALTHCHECK --interval=10m --timeout=5s --retries=3 \
        CMD wget --no-verbose --tries=1 --spider http://localhost:$PORT || exit 1

WORKDIR /app
## Copy required file to run the production application
COPY --from=base --chown=node:node /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=base --chown=node:node /app/*.json ./
COPY --from=build --chown=node:node /app/dist ./dist/

## https://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2016/01/dumb-init-an-init-for-docker.html
RUN apk add --no-cache dumb-init

## Dropping privileges
USER node
## Running the app wrapped by the init system for helping on graceful shutdowns
CMD ["dumb-init", "node", "."]

yarn.Dockerfile

## ===========================================================> The common stage
FROM node:16.14 AS base
ENV NODE_ENV=production

WORKDIR /app

COPY package.json \
     yarn.lock    \
     ./
RUN yarn --frozen-lockfile --ignore-scripts --production \
 && yarn cache clean

## Remove unnecessary files from `node_modules` directory
RUN ( wget -q -O /dev/stdout https://gobinaries.com/tj/node-prune | sh ) \
 && node-prune


## ======================================================> The build image stage
FROM base AS build
ENV NODE_ENV=development

COPY . .
## This step could install only the missing dependencies (ie., development deps ones)
## but there's no way to do that with this NPM version
RUN yarn --frozen-lockfile --ignore-scripts
## Compile the TypeScript source code
RUN yarn build


## =================================================> The production image stage
FROM node:16.14-alpine3.14 AS prod
ENV NODE_ENV=production

ARG PORT=3000
ENV PORT=$PORT
EXPOSE $PORT

HEALTHCHECK --interval=10m --timeout=5s --retries=3 \
        CMD wget --no-verbose --tries=1 --spider http://localhost:$PORT || exit 1

WORKDIR /app
## Copy required file to run the production application
COPY --from=base --chown=node:node /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=base --chown=node:node /app/*.json ./
COPY --from=build --chown=node:node /app/dist ./dist/

## https://engineeringblog.yelp.com/2016/01/dumb-init-an-init-for-docker.html
RUN apk add --no-cache dumb-init

## Dropping privileges
USER node
## Running the app wrapped by the init system for helping on graceful shutdowns
CMD ["dumb-init", "node", "."]