Caching docker build step
This tip was a complete day-saver. Building and rebuilding can take up a lot of time - so caching is essential.
I nailed the caching of the basic steps quite fast, since this works out of the box for Docker, but I was left with the actually assembling of dependencies. The concept is actually quite simple, the fewer layers you have the better, but for this specific step we want to enable extra layers for caching.
Normally my Dockerfile would look as follows:
# Copy your application files and dependency listings
COPY . /usr/src/app
# Set working directory
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
# Install dependencies
RUN carton install --deployment
By splitting and reordering the steps:
# Set working directory
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
# Copy your dependency listings
COPY cpanfile.snapshot /usr/src/app
COPY cpanfile /usr/src/app
# Install dependencies
RUN carton install --deployment
# Copy your application files
COPY . /usr/src/app
The step of installing dependencies are isolated and is no longer mixed with the actual staging of the application files.