Dockerfile Best Practices: 15 Rules for Production

15 essential Dockerfile best practices: layer ordering, .dockerignore, non-root user, health checks, and security scanning.

15 Rules

1. Use specific base image tags, not latest
2. Use Alpine or distroless images
3. Order layers by change frequency (package.json before source)
4. Use .dockerignore
5. npm ci not npm install
6. Multi-stage builds
7. Run as non-root (USER)
8. Add HEALTHCHECK
9. One process per container
10. Use COPY not ADD
11. Clean up in the same layer (apt-get clean)
12. Pin dependency versions
13. Scan for vulnerabilities (docker scout)
14. Use --no-cache in CI
15. Label images with metadata

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