COPY with docker but with exclusion

Question

In a Dockerfile, I have

COPY . .

I want to exclude an entire directory, in my case, node_modules directory.

Something like this:

Answer 1

FOR A ONE LINER SOLUTION, type the following in Command prompt or Terminal at project root.

echo node_modules > .dockerignore

This creates the extension-less . prefixed file without any issue. Replace node_modules with the folder you want to exclude.