Docker Compose for Production: Node.js + Redis + PostgreSQL Stack

Docker Compose is excellent for production when you use it correctly. The common failure modes — services starting before their dependencies are ready, secrets in environment variables visible in docker inspect, single-layer images that are 1.2GB, no memory limits causing OOM kills, volumes with no backup strategy — are all avoidable with the right configuration.

This guide walks through a complete production-grade Node.js + Redis + PostgreSQL stack. Every configuration choice here addresses a real failure mode.

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Multi-Stage Dockerfile: Node.js

A naive Node.js Dockerfile copies everything and installs all dependencies in one layer. The result is a 1GB+ image with dev dependencies, source maps, and unnecessary files. Multi-stage builds produce images under 200MB with only what production needs.

# Dockerfile
# Stage 1: Install all dependencies (including dev)
FROM node:22-alpine AS deps
WORKDIR /app

# Copy package files first for layer caching
COPY package*.json ./
COPY prisma ./prisma/

# Install all deps including devDeps for build
RUN npm ci --frozen-lockfile

# Stage 2: Build the application
FROM node:22-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app

COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .

# Generate Prisma client
RUN npx prisma generate

# Build TypeScript
RUN npm run build

# Stage 3: Production image — only runtime artifacts
FROM node:22-alpine AS runner
WORKDIR /app

ENV NODE_ENV=production

# Security: run as non-root
RUN addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs &&     adduser --system --uid 1001 --ingroup nodejs nodeuser

# Copy only what production needs
COPY --from=builder --chown=nodeuser:nodejs /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=builder --chown=nodeuser:nodejs /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=builder --chown=nodeuser:nodejs /app/prisma ./prisma
COPY --chown=nodeuser:nodejs package.json ./

USER nodeuser

EXPOSE 3000

# Use exec form to handle signals properly (not shell form)
CMD ["node", "dist/server.js"]

HEALTHCHECK --interval=15s --timeout=5s --start-period=30s --retries=3   CMD wget -qO /dev/null http://localhost:3000/health || exit 1

Complete docker-compose.yml for Production

# docker-compose.yml
name: myapp

services:
  # --- PostgreSQL ---
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: ${POSTGRES_DB:-myapp}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER:-myapp}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD_FILE: /run/secrets/postgres_password
    secrets:
      - postgres_password
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./db/init:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d:ro
    networks:
      - backend
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${POSTGRES_USER:-myapp} -d ${POSTGRES_DB:-myapp}"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 30s
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: "1.0"
          memory: 512M
        reservations:
          memory: 256M

  # --- Redis ---
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: >
      redis-server
      --requirepass-file /run/secrets/redis_password
      --maxmemory 256mb
      --maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru
      --save 60 1000
      --appendonly yes
    secrets:
      - redis_password
    volumes:
      - redis_data:/data
    networks:
      - backend
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "-a", "$(cat /run/secrets/redis_password)", "ping"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 15s
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: "0.5"
          memory: 384M

  # --- Database migrations (run-once job) ---
  migrator:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      target: builder
    command: npx prisma migrate deploy
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: "postgresql://${POSTGRES_USER:-myapp}:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/${POSTGRES_DB:-myapp}"
    secrets:
      - postgres_password
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
    networks:
      - backend
    restart: "no"

  # --- Application ---
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
      target: runner
      cache_from:
        - type=registry,ref=myregistry.io/myapp:buildcache
      cache_to:
        - type=registry,ref=myregistry.io/myapp:buildcache,mode=max
    image: myregistry.io/myapp:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      NODE_ENV: production
      PORT: "3000"
      DATABASE_URL_FILE: /run/secrets/database_url
      REDIS_URL_FILE: /run/secrets/redis_url
      JWT_SECRET_FILE: /run/secrets/jwt_secret
    secrets:
      - database_url
      - redis_url
      - jwt_secret
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_healthy
      migrator:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
    networks:
      - backend
      - frontend
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "wget", "-qO", "/dev/null", "http://localhost:3000/health"]
      interval: 15s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 30s
    deploy:
      replicas: 2
      update_config:
        parallelism: 1
        delay: 15s
        failure_action: rollback
        order: start-first
      rollback_config:
        parallelism: 1
        delay: 10s
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: "1.0"
          memory: 512M
        reservations:
          cpus: "0.25"
          memory: 128M
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "50m"
        max-file: "5"

  # --- Nginx reverse proxy ---
  nginx:
    image: nginx:1.25-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./nginx/nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
      - ./nginx/conf.d:/etc/nginx/conf.d:ro
      - certbot_www:/var/www/certbot:ro
      - certbot_conf:/etc/letsencrypt:ro
    depends_on:
      app:
        condition: service_healthy
    networks:
      - frontend
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "nginx", "-t"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 10s

volumes:
  postgres_data:
    driver: local
  redis_data:
    driver: local
  certbot_www:
  certbot_conf:

networks:
  backend:
    driver: bridge
    internal: true   # No direct internet access
  frontend:
    driver: bridge

secrets:
  postgres_password:
    file: ./secrets/postgres_password.txt
  redis_password:
    file: ./secrets/redis_password.txt
  database_url:
    file: ./secrets/database_url.txt
  redis_url:
    file: ./secrets/redis_url.txt
  jwt_secret:
    file: ./secrets/jwt_secret.txt