I'm building a todo app with Rust, Vue, and Docker Compose, and I'm trying to decide how much to separate the development and production setups. I was considering a development override file that starts development-specific images, but I'm worried that maintaining multiple Dockerfiles or noticeably different environments could become messy. I'll also need to choose between PostgreSQL and SQLite. What's the usual approach for keeping local development convenient while ensuring the production setup remains reliable?
3 Answers
There usually isn’t a need for separate production and development Dockerfiles. The Dockerfile describes how the application is built, and Compose describes the services it runs with, such as the application and PostgreSQL. For development, an override file can add bind mounts, hot reloading, debugging tools, or a development command, while production uses the normal image and stricter settings.
Ideally, build the same application image for both development and production. The Dockerfile and resulting artifact should stay the same, while environment variables, secrets, database URLs, and other configuration values change between environments. You can use a development container or Compose override for conveniences like mounted source code and file watching, without changing the production image itself.
Keep configuration outside the image. Use separate environment files or a secrets system for development and production, making sure credentials and other sensitive values never get baked into the image. This gives you the same operating environment in both places while allowing each environment to have its own parameters and secrets.
That makes sense. I’ll look into development containers—can they also watch the source files and restart or rebuild the app automatically?