Create a simple Docker image with Node.js & TypeScript

🚀 Create a Docker Image

Docker allows you to package and distribute applications in a consistent and scalable way. In this guide, we’ll go through the steps to create a Docker image for a simple Node.js and TypeScript application.


Table of contents


🛠 Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have the following installed on your machine:


Set Up a Simple Node.js Project

Let’s start by creating a simple Node.js + TypeScript application:

$ mkdir node-docker-app && cd node-docker-app
$ npm init -y
$ npm install typescript ts-node express cors
$ npx tsc --init

Then, create an index.ts file in your project.

import express from 'express';
import cors from 'cors';

class Server {

    public app: express.Application = express();
    private port: number = 4000;

    constructor() {
        this.app.use(express.json());
        this.app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
        this.app.use(cors());

        this.listen();
    }

     public listen() {
        this.app.listen(() => console.log(`Server listening on port ${this.port}`));
     }
}

new Server();

Create a Dockerfile

Now, let’s create a Dockerfile in the root of our project.

# Use an official Node.js runtime as a base image
FROM node:18-alpine

# Set the working directory inside the container
WORKDIR /app

# Copy package.json and package-lock.json
COPY package*.json ./

# Install dependencies
RUN npm install

# Copy the rest of the application files
COPY . .

# Expose the app port
EXPOSE 4000

# Start the application
CMD ["npm", "run", "start"]

Run and Test the Docker Image

# Build the Docker image
$ docker build -t nodejs-ts-docker .

# Run the container
$ docker run -p 4000:4000 nodejs-ts-docker

Using Docker Compose

Instead of running multiple commands manually, we can use docker-compose.yml:

version: "3.8"
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4000:4000"
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=development

✅ Running with Docker Compose

$ docker-compose up -d

Production with docker-compose.prod.yml

version: "3.8"
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "4000:4000"
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=production
    command: ["node", "build/index.js"]

✅ Running in Production

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d

This tells Docker to use both docker-compose.yml and docker-compose.prod.yml, overriding production-specific settings.

🔗 Project Repository

For full source code and latest updates, visit:

👉 GitHub Repository 🚀