Docker

Docker Code Review Rules

Security (Critical)

• Build-Time Variable Safety: Always sanitize build-time variables sourced from CI/CD or --build-arg to prevent injection attacks. Validate and escape externally-sourced values before using in ARG, ENV, or LABEL directives
• Template Variable Safety: Avoid template variables such as {{ }} and undeclared variables in Dockerfiles. Add linting step to scan for these patterns during review
• Run as non-root user (USER directive)
• Don't store secrets in image (use runtime injection)
• Don't use --privileged without justification
• Scan images for vulnerabilities
• Set readonly root filesystem where possible

Base Images (Essential)

• Pin base image to specific version (not latest)
• Use official images from trusted sources
• Prefer minimal images (alpine, slim, distroless)
• Regularly update base images for security patches

Build Optimization (Essential)

• Use multi-stage builds to reduce final image size
• Order instructions by change frequency (cache optimization)
• Combine RUN commands to reduce layers
• Use .dockerignore to exclude unnecessary files, sensitive data, and build artifacts like node_modules

Instructions (Essential)

• Use COPY instead of ADD (unless extracting archives)
• Set WORKDIR before COPY/RUN
• Use explicit EXPOSE for documentation
• Set meaningful LABEL metadata

Instructions (Advanced)

• Explicitly set SHELL if bash/sh features are needed
• Set environment variables with ENV for configuration (not secrets)
• Clean up package manager caches after install (e.g., apt-get clean)
• Understand ENTRYPOINT vs CMD: use ENTRYPOINT for main command, CMD for default args
• Document container usage with OCI labels (org.opencontainers.image.*)

Health Checks

• Include HEALTHCHECK instruction
• Health check should verify app is actually working
• Set appropriate interval and timeout

Example Good Dockerfile Pattern (Advanced)

# Build stage
FROM node:20-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production

# Runtime stage
FROM node:20-alpine

# Add OCI labels for documentation
LABEL org.opencontainers.image.title="My App"
LABEL org.opencontainers.image.description="Production web application"
LABEL org.opencontainers.image.version="1.0.0"

RUN addgroup -S appgroup && adduser -S appuser -G appgroup
WORKDIR /app

# Copy dependencies and app files
COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .

# Set environment variables (not secrets)
ENV NODE_ENV=production

USER appuser
EXPOSE 3000
HEALTHCHECK CMD wget -q --spider http://localhost:3000/health || exit 1

# Use ENTRYPOINT for main command, CMD for default args
ENTRYPOINT ["node"]
CMD ["server.js"]