Docker node development environment on windows

Question

I'm developing a simple NodeJS application. I use docker and it makes it very easy to deploy to production. This is my Dockerfile:

FROM node
COPY . /src
RUN cd /src; npm install
EXPOSE  3000
CMD ["node", "/src/express.js"]

On my development environment (windows, boot2Docker) Docker is slowing me down, because for every small change I do, I have to re-build the Docker image and run the container and it takes a few minutes.
I couldn't find a way to simply copy my source files from the host to the docker container. Is there an easy way to do it? Should I use plain nodeJS on my development environment and only use Docker in production?

Thanks!

Answer 1

At least during development, you could share a folder from your windows OS with docker - would make the code-debug cycle a lot quicker.

Mount a Host Directory as a Data Volume: https://docs.docker.com/userguide/dockervolumes/

(about 1/2 way down the page)

Answer 2

Try the following:

FROM node
COPY ./package.json /src
RUN cd /src && npm install
COPY . src/
EXPOSE  3000
CMD ["node", "/src/express.js"]

The way you originally have it will install npm packages everytime you change something within src. If we separate this step, these packages will only be installed if the package.json file changes.