Build with a Dockerfile

You can build your projects on Northflank by supplying a Dockerfile in your repository.

A custom Dockerfile gives you full control over each step of the build process, including things like build arguments and custom base images. You must specify the location of the Dockerfile in your repository and the build context (root by default).

Select Dockerfile as the build type when creating your service, or change an existing service from the build options page.

See Docker's guide on writing Dockerfiles and the Dockerfile reference for more information.

If you have a single repository with multiple services, or your repository is structured so that your Dockerfile is not in the root, you can specify its location when creating or editing your services.

You can specify the location of the Dockerfile relative to the root of the repository. For example root: /Dockerfile, or in a subdirectory: /directory/subdirectory/Dockerfile.

Learn more about the Dockerfile .

Choose between Kaniko (default) or BuildKit under advanced build settings. You may want to choose another build engine if you experience any issues with reliability.

You should always include a .dockerignore file in your repository, in order to reduce the final image size by excluding everything unnecessary.

For example to ignore the git folder and .env files you would add the following to .dockerignore:

.git
*.env