3 Quick Wins for Faster Docker Builds

Docker builds often become bloated over time, slowing down CI/CD pipelines. Here are three quick wins to optimize your container images.

1. Multi-Stage Builds

Never ship your build tools to production. Use a build stage to compile binaries and a runtime stage (like alpine or distroless) for the final image.

2. Layer Ordering

Place your COPY requirements.txt and dependency installation steps before copying your source code. This leverages the Docker build cache effectively.

3. .dockerignore

Ensure you aren't copying .git folders, node_modules, or local temporary files into the build context. This saves network bandwidth and build time.