Docker updating image along when dockerfile changes

Docker build support caching as long as there is no ADD instruction. If you are actively developing and changing files, only what is after the ADD will be rebuilt.

Since 0.6.2 (scheduled today), you can do docker build --rm . and it will remove the temporary containers. It will keep the images though.

In order to remove the orphan images, you can check them out with docker images, and perform a docker rmi <id> on one of them. As of now, there is an auto-prune and all untagged images (orphans, previous builds) will be removed.

According to this best practices guide if you keep the first lines of your dockerfile the same it'll also cache them and reuse the same images for future builds

During development, it makes less sense to re-build a whole container for every commit. Later, you can automate building a Docker container with your latest code as part of your QA/deployment process.

Basically, you can choose to make a minimal container that pulls in code (using git when starting the container, or using -v /home/myuser/mynode:/home/myuser/mynode with ENTRYPOINT to run node).

See my answer to this question:

Docker rails app and git