does mean that I have to re-create the app container every single time I change something, even if it’s only a typo
not necessarily, you could use the -v option for the docker run command to inject your project files into a container. So you would not have to rebuild a docker image.
Note that the ONBUILD instruction is meant for cases where a Dockerfile inherits FROM a parent Dockerfile. The ONBUILD instructions found in the parent Dockerfile would be run when Docker builds an image of the child Dockerfile.
This doesn’t seem to be very efficient, e.g. when creating web applications where you are used to change something, save, and hit refresh in the browser.
If you are using a Docker container to serve a web application while you are iterating on that application code, then I suggest you make a special Docker image which only contains everything to run your app but the app code.
Then share the directory that contains your app code on your host machine with the directory from which the application files are served within the docker container.
For instance, if I’m developing a static web site and my workspace is at /home/thomas/workspace/project1/, then I would start a container running nginx with:
docker run -d -p 80:80 -v /home/thomas/workspace/project1/:/usr/local/nginx/html:ro nginx
That way I can change files in /home/thomas/workspace/project1/ and the changes are reflected live without having to rebuild the docker image or even restart the docker container.