Skip to main content

Dockerizing a .NET API for Local Development

· One min read
Jose Arcani
Jose Arcani
Owner of this site

Setting up a consistent dev environment across machines can be frustrating. Here's how I containerize my .NET APIs so the setup is just docker compose up.

The Problem​

Every time I set up a project on a new machine — or onboard someone — there's a checklist: install the right SDK version, configure connection strings, seed the database. Docker removes most of that friction.

The Dockerfile​

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:8.0 AS build
WORKDIR /src
COPY *.csproj ./
RUN dotnet restore
COPY . ./
RUN dotnet publish -c Release -o /app

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet:8.0
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build /app .
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "MyApi.dll"]

Docker Compose​

services:
  api:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "5000:8080"
    depends_on:
      - db
  db:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
    environment:
      SA_PASSWORD: "YourStrong!Password"
      ACCEPT_EULA: "Y"
    ports:
      - "1433:1433"

Takeaway​

This is a starting point — for production you'd want health checks, volume mounts for data persistence, and proper secret management. But for local dev, this gets you running in seconds.