Docker

Explainer includes a multi-stage Dockerfile that can build any of the three apps into a lightweight nginx-based container.

Dockerfile stages

The build process has three stages:

Building an app

Use the APP build argument to specify which app to build:

docker build --build-arg APP=docs -t explainer-docs .

docker build --build-arg APP=blog -t explainer-blog .

docker build --build-arg APP=website -t explainer-website .

Running

docker run -p 8080:8080 explainer-docs

The container serves on port 8080 by default, configured in nginx.conf.

Nginx configuration

The included nginx.conf provides:

• gzip compression for text, CSS, JS, JSON, and SVG
• SPA routing with try_files $uri $uri/index.html =404
• No-cache headers for 404.html to prevent stale error pages

server {
    listen 8080;
    root /usr/share/nginx/html;

    gzip on;
    gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/javascript text/xml image/svg+xml;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/index.html =404;
    }

    location = /404.html {
        add_header Cache-Control "no-cache";
    }
}

Docker Compose example

services:
  docs:
    build:
      context: .
      args:
        APP: docs
    ports:
      - "4321:8080"

  blog:
    build:
      context: .
      args:
        APP: blog
    ports:
      - "4322:8080"

  website:
    build:
      context: .
      args:
        APP: website
    ports:
      - "4323:8080"