Why is the ‘rm -rf node_modules’ command helpful during a frontend app build?

The node_modules folder can get quite large based on how many dependencies your project has. In some cases, the final Docker image doesn't need node_modules because the application can run without it packaged in. The original poster likely removed it to reduce the image size after the build is complete.

However, as for speeding up the build process, I think removing node_modules here doesn't actually help. The time-consuming parts are mainly `npm ci` for a clean installation and `npm run build`, not the deletion after those commands. So, while it might clean up the final image, it won't significantly affect the build time itself.

The key reason is in the initial response you mentioned. Docker can struggle with exporting layers that have many small files like those in node_modules. When you run Docker commands, they apply changes to a temporary filesystem that isn’t the actual image. To create the image, Docker needs to export this filesystem. Reducing the number of files helps speed up this export process, making the build faster overall.

Honestly, if you did some basic research on Docker, you'd find that node_modules isn’t typically supposed to be part of the final image anyway. But if the project works without it, that means they might have other methods to include necessary dependencies when the container runs.

Is this for real? 🤔