npm ERR! missing script: serve

Question

Getting error while starting the docker container. I am using nodemon to listen to the file changes.

DockerFile

FROM node:alpine
WORKDIR '/app'
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install
COPY . .
CMD ["npm","run","serve"]

Package.json

{
    "dependencies": {
        "express": "*",
        "nodemon": "*"
    },
    "scripts": {
        "serve": "nodemon index.js",
        "start": "node index.js"
    }
}

build command

docker build -f Dockerfile.dev -t test/nodeapp1 .

cmdLine docker cmd ->

docker run -p 3000:8080 -v /app/node_modules -v pwd:/app test/nodeapp1.

Iam new to docker, and not able to figure out the cause.

Answer 1

Make this changes in your dockerfile

FROM node:alpine

ENV NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=/home/node/.npm-global
ENV HOME=/home/node/app
ENV PATH="/home/node/.npm-global/bin:${PATH}"

USER node

RUN npm install -g nodemon


RUN mkdir -p ${HOME}
WORKDIR ${HOME}

ADD package.json ${HOME}

RUN cd ${HOME} && npm install

CMD [ "npm" ,"run", "serve" ]

Build the docker container

docker build -f Dockerfile -t prac/nodeApp .

Run the docker container

docker run -p 3000:8080 -v /app/node_modules -v pwd:/app prac/nodeApp

Answer 2

Changing the WORKDIR to a new value worked.

FROM node:alpine

WORKDIR '/dir'

COPY package.json .

RUN npm install

COPY . .

CMD [ "npm" ,"run", "serve" ]

Answer 3

Your docker run -v options are wrong. You probably actually meant to write

docker run ... -v $PWD:/app ...
docker run ... -v $(pwd):/app ...

to use the current directory (from the PWD environment variable or from the pwd command, respectively) as a bind mount .

I tend to not recommend this pattern, especially for Node applications where the host dependencies are minimal and you're not interacting much with other containers. It's probably easier to just install Node locally (if you don't already have it) and do live development against that; when you want to use Docker to deploy your application, use the version you've COPY ed into the image, and don't separately use a -v option to inject your code over it.