In your next.config.mjs file, :

const nextConfig = {
  output: 'standalone', // For web services/Docker
  experimental: {
    instrumentationHook: true, // To enable instrumentation
  },
};

export default nextConfig;

This will allow the Next.js application to be run as a web service.

Create a Dockerfile in the root of your project with the following content:

COPY package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN npm ci

FROM base as builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .

RUN npm run build

FROM base as runner
WORKDIR /app

ENV NODE_ENV production

RUN addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs
RUN adduser --system --uid 1001 nextjs

COPY --from=builder /app/public ./public

RUN mkdir .next

RUN chown nextjs:nodejs .next

COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/standalone ./
COPY --from=builder --chown=nextjs:nodejs /app/.next/static ./.next/static

USER nextjs

EXPOSE 3000

ENV PORT 3000

CMD HOSTNAME="0.0.0.0" node server.js

In this optimized dockerfile, we are using the base image as the base image for the builder and runner stages. The builder stage is used to build the application and the runner stage is used to run the application.

Create a .dockerignore file in the root of your project with the following content:

Dockerfile
.dockerignore
node_modules
.next
README.md
npm-debug.log
!.next/static
!.next/standalone
.git

This will prevent unnecessary files from being included in the Docker image. You can add more files to the ignore list if you see fit.

Build the Docker image with the following command:

docker image build -t nextjs-example:latest .        

Run the Docker container with the following command:

docker container run -p 3000:3000 -e INFRASTACK_API_KEY=<your-infrastack-api-key> nextjs-example:latest

You can verify that the application is working by navigating to http://localhost:3000 in your web browser.

You can push the Docker image to a registry such as Docker Hub or GitHub Container Registry and then deploy it to a cloud provider of your choice.