Docker Strategy
Purpose
Whether/how containerization is used — flagged as an open decision in the original conversation ("if we decide to use it"), still open now.
Considerations
- For: consistent environment across Local/Staging/Production, easier onboarding for a future second developer, cleaner dependency isolation
- Against: adds a layer of operational complexity (image builds, registry, orchestration) that may not be justified for a single-VPS MVP deployment
Recommendation
Given the current scale (single VPS, small team), Docker is a reasonable but not required addition — the CI/CD Pipeline and VPS Setup docs work fine without it (direct Node process managed by PM2, for example). Consider adopting Docker if/when the team grows, or if moving toward multiple VPS instances / container orchestration becomes necessary.
Open Questions
- Final yes/no on Docker for MVP — explicitly left open in the original conversation and still genuinely undecided; not something to default silently given it affects the whole deployment pipeline design
Update (2026-08-07): RESOLVED — Yes, for Local Dev
Founder confirmed a second team member joining (frontend/testing), which is exactly the trigger condition this doc named for reconsidering Docker — "a future second developer" needing consistent onboarding. Decided: use Docker for local development, specifically to avoid "works on my machine" drift between two different machines/OSes now that there genuinely are two. Production/VPS deployment stays as already designed (direct process, not containerized) — this is a local-dev-only decision, not a change to hosting.
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