How to run Node-Red on Docker with multiple environments with git

I'm running Node-Red on my server, and I want it to follow the deployment process like we are doing with code- working locally, making changes, commit and push.

Here is the list of the requirements:

Run Node-Red on Docker.
Track and backup tasks, configurations, all with Git
Ability to clone the repository and start Node-Red, without any configurations.
Make the changes on my local machine, and deploy them by pushing to Git.

To be more accurate, I need to add the flows.json, settings.json and package.json to the git.

And one of the main issues is when I'm adding a new package to the package.json, the NodeRed will not install it automaticlly.

Solution

The solution (workaround) I found is based on adding npm install to the docker entrypoint, how does it work?

Mount to local folder

First, we want to run the Node-Red, and mount its /data volume to our local folder:

docker run -p 1880:1880 -v $(pwd)/node-red:/data nodered/node-red

Now, if you're running from your local git repo, you will get a folder called node-red and it will include all the Node-Red workspace.

Add Node-Red data to Git

To track only the Node-Red configuration files, you need to add the next entries to your .gitignore file:

node-red/*
!node-red/package.json
!node-red/package-lock.json
!node-red/flows.json
!node-red/flows_cred.json
!node-red/settings.js

All the other files are auto-generated.

Install the missing packages on startup

Now, the hard part. If you added a new library in your local environment, and you pushed the changes, you want Node-Red to install the new library before it starts.

We will take the original Node-Red start command from Node-Red Dockerfile:

npm --no-update-notifier --no-fund start --cache /data/.npm -- --userDir /data

And before this command, we will take the npm install command suggested for a custom docker:

npm install --unsafe-perm --no-update-notifier --no-fund --only=production

Here is my final docker-compose.yml file, which includes a docker run commandline to run only this image in the development environment:

node-red:
  # port 1880
  # Dev: docker run -p 1880:1880 -v $(pwd)/node-red:/data --entrypoint="" --env-file .env nodered/node-red /bin/sh -c "npm install --prefix /data --unsafe-perm --no-update-notifier --no-fund --only=production && npm --no-update-notifier --no-fund start --cache /data/.npm -- --userDir /data"
  image: nodered/node-red
  env_file:
    - shared.env
  network_mode: host
  entrypoint: >
    sh -c "
    npm install --prefix /data --unsafe-perm --no-update-notifier --no-fund --only=production
    && npm --no-update-notifier --no-fund start --cache /data/.npm -- --userDir /data"
  environment:
    NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET: ${NODE_RED_CREDENTIAL_SECRET}
  volumes:
    - ./node-red:/data
  restart: unless-stopped