Typescript Nodejs Dockerfile: error TS5057: Cannot find a tsconfig.json file at the specified directory: '.'

Question

I'm trying to create a production build for a node typescript project using a Dockerfile.

Though, at the step of converting the TS files into Javascript, I get the following error:

error TS5057: Cannot find a tsconfig.json file at the specified directory: '.'.
error Command failed with exit code 1.

Can someone help me getting this right, please?

Below are the pieces of information about the main files used:

• Dockerfile

FROM node:lts-stretch-slim

# Create app directory to hold the application code inside the image
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

# Install app dependencies
COPY package*.json yarn.lock ./

RUN yarn

RUN yarn build

COPY ./dist .

EXPOSE 3333

COPY entrypoint.sh /
ENTRYPOINT [ "/bin/bash", "/entrypoint.sh" ]

• Error

[4/4] Building fresh packages...
Done in 13.99s.
Removing intermediate container 44a52bf048a4
 ---> 39b5fc8dc705
Step 5/9 : RUN yarn build
 ---> Running in 04bb0ea984e3
yarn run v1.22.4
$ tsc -p .
error TS5057: Cannot find a tsconfig.json file at the specified directory: '.'.
error Command failed with exit code 1.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
ERROR: Service 'node-app' failed to build: The command '/bin/sh -c yarn build' returned a non-zero code: 1

• Package.json

"scripts": {
    "dev": "ts-node-dev --transpileOnly --ignore-watch node_modules src/server.ts",
    "start": "node dist/src/server.js",
    "build": "tsc -p ."
  },

• tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    /* Visit https://aka.ms/tsconfig.json to read more about this file */

    /* Basic Options */
    // "incremental": true,                   /* Enable incremental compilation */
    "target": "es6",                          /* Specify ECMAScript target version: 'ES3' (default), 'ES5', 'ES2015', 'ES2016', 'ES2017', 'ES2018', 'ES2019', 'ES2020', or 'ESNEXT'. */
    "module": "commonjs",                     /* Specify module code generation: 'none', 'commonjs', 'amd', 'system', 'umd', 'es2015', 'es2020', or 'ESNext'. */
    // "lib": [],                             /* Specify library files to be included in the compilation. */
    // "allowJs": true,                       /* Allow javascript files to be compiled. */
    // "checkJs": true,                       /* Report errors in .js files. */
    // "jsx": "preserve",                     /* Specify JSX code generation: 'preserve', 'react-native', or 'react'. */
    // "declaration": true,                   /* Generates corresponding '.d.ts' file. */
    // "declarationMap": true,                /* Generates a sourcemap for each corresponding '.d.ts' file. */
    // "sourceMap": true,                     /* Generates corresponding '.map' file. */
    // "outFile": "./",                       /* Concatenate and emit output to single file. */
    "outDir": "./dist",                        /* Redirect output structure to the directory. */
    "rootDir": "./",                       /* Specify the root directory of input files. Use to control the output directory structure with --outDir. */
    // "composite": true,                     /* Enable project compilation */
    // "tsBuildInfoFile": "./",               /* Specify file to store incremental compilation information */
    // "removeComments": true,                /* Do not emit comments to output. */
    // "noEmit": true,                        /* Do not emit outputs. */
    // "importHelpers": true,                 /* Import emit helpers from 'tslib'. */
    // "downlevelIteration": true,            /* Provide full support for iterables in 'for-of', spread, and destructuring when targeting 'ES5' or 'ES3'. */
    // "isolatedModules": true,               /* Transpile each file as a separate module (similar to 'ts.transpileModule'). */

    /* Strict Type-Checking Options */
    "strict": true,                           /* Enable all strict type-checking options. */
    // "noImplicitAny": true,                 /* Raise error on expressions and declarations with an implied 'any' type. */
    // "strictNullChecks": true,              /* Enable strict null checks. */
    // "strictFunctionTypes": true,           /* Enable strict checking of function types. */
    // "strictBindCallApply": true,           /* Enable strict 'bind', 'call', and 'apply' methods on functions. */
    // "strictPropertyInitialization": true,  /* Enable strict checking of property initialization in classes. */
    // "noImplicitThis": true,                /* Raise error on 'this' expressions with an implied 'any' type. */
    // "alwaysStrict": true,                  /* Parse in strict mode and emit "use strict" for each source file. */

    /* Additional Checks */
    // "noUnusedLocals": true,                /* Report errors on unused locals. */
    // "noUnusedParameters": true,            /* Report errors on unused parameters. */
    // "noImplicitReturns": true,             /* Report error when not all code paths in function return a value. */
    // "noFallthroughCasesInSwitch": true,    /* Report errors for fallthrough cases in switch statement. */

    /* Module Resolution Options */
    // "moduleResolution": "node",            /* Specify module resolution strategy: 'node' (Node.js) or 'classic' (TypeScript pre-1.6). */
    // "baseUrl": "./",                       /* Base directory to resolve non-absolute module names. */
    // "paths": {},                           /* A series of entries which re-map imports to lookup locations relative to the 'baseUrl'. */
    // "rootDirs": [],                        /* List of root folders whose combined content represents the structure of the project at runtime. */
    // "typeRoots": [],                       /* List of folders to include type definitions from. */
    // "types": [],                           /* Type declaration files to be included in compilation. */
    // "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,  /* Allow default imports from modules with no default export. This does not affect code emit, just typechecking. */
    "esModuleInterop": true,                  /* Enables emit interoperability between CommonJS and ES Modules via creation of namespace objects for all imports. Implies 'allowSyntheticDefaultImports'. */
    // "preserveSymlinks": true,              /* Do not resolve the real path of symlinks. */
    // "allowUmdGlobalAccess": true,          /* Allow accessing UMD globals from modules. */

    /* Source Map Options */
    // "sourceRoot": "",                      /* Specify the location where debugger should locate TypeScript files instead of source locations. */
    // "mapRoot": "",                         /* Specify the location where debugger should locate map files instead of generated locations. */
    // "inlineSourceMap": true,               /* Emit a single file with source maps instead of having a separate file. */
    // "inlineSources": true,                 /* Emit the source alongside the sourcemaps within a single file; requires '--inlineSourceMap' or '--sourceMap' to be set. */

    /* Experimental Options */
    // "experimentalDecorators": true,        /* Enables experimental support for ES7 decorators. */
    // "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,         /* Enables experimental support for emitting type metadata for decorators. */

    /* Advanced Options */
    "skipLibCheck": true,                     /* Skip type checking of declaration files. */
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true  /* Disallow inconsistently-cased references to the same file. */
  }
}

PS: Both the Dockerfile and the tsconfig.json are at the root directory of the project (same level I mean). And I can successfully run the yarn build script locally (outside of the Dockerfile), which in turn generates the dist folder with only JS code.

PS2: I followed this tutorial in order to build a similar Dockerfile for me.

Answer 1

You are not copying all the files to the container. You are only copying what is in the dist folder with COPY ./dist .

My question to you is, is this for development or for production? If its for development you can just copy the while root directory of the project with

COPY . .

Now if this is for a production build you definitely want an intermediate build step so you only have to copy the compiled JS code to the container and run that.

Answer 2

Thanks to the folks that have helped, I was able to adjust the Dockerfile accordingly to my needs here.

I had to create an empty TS file next to my tsconfig.json file to get rid of the error mentioned at my comment above. I also had to remove the dist in front of the path in the script section, otherwise I would get a module not found error.

The Dockerfile ended up being like this for now:

FROM node:lts-stretch-slim
# FROM node:10

# Create app directory to hold the application code inside the image
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

# Install app dependencies
COPY package*.json yarn.lock ./
COPY tsconfig.json ./
COPY .env ./

COPY emptyTs.ts ./

RUN yarn


RUN yarn build

COPY ./dist .
# COPY . .

EXPOSE 3333

COPY entrypoint.sh /
ENTRYPOINT [ "/bin/bash", "/entrypoint.sh" ]

• package.json

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "ts-node-dev --transpileOnly --ignore-watch node_modules src/server.ts",
    "start": "node src/server.js",
    "build": "tsc -p ."
  },

Updated answer (November 28th, 2020)

I ended up using a multi-stage build for this. Below you can find the Dockerfile script I wrote:

FROM node:lts-stretch-slim AS build
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY package*.json yarn.lock ./
COPY tsconfig.json ./
COPY .env ./
RUN yarn
COPY . .
RUN yarn build


FROM node:lts-stretch-slim
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY package*.json yarn.lock ./
COPY .env ./
RUN yarn
COPY --from=build /usr/src/app/dist ./
EXPOSE 3333
COPY entrypoint.sh /
ENTRYPOINT [ "/bin/bash", "/entrypoint.sh" ]