[Fixed] /bin/sh: sequelize: not found when I try to run express.js app with docker-compose

Issue

I have this in the Dockerfile in the users-service directory.

FROM node:15-alpine

COPY . /app

WORKDIR /app

RUN echo ">>>> $PWD"

RUN ls -lart

RUN yarn install

RUN ls -lart /app/node_modules/.bin

CMD yarn watch

Current directory is /app as expected. Sequelize binary is there in the node_modules/.bin folder. Result of /app/node_modules/.bin command is…

total 16
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            21 Apr  9 18:35 uuid -> ../uuid/dist/bin/uuid
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            30 Apr  9 18:35 sequelize-cli -> ../sequelize-cli/lib/sequelize
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            30 Apr  9 18:35 sequelize -> ../sequelize-cli/lib/sequelize

This is the docker-compose.yml:

....

services:
  users-service:
    build: './users-service'
    depends_on:
      - users-service-db
    environment:
      - DB_URI=mysql://root:**********@users-service-db/users_db?charset=UTF8
    ports:
      - 7100:7100
    volumes:
      - ./users-service:/app
    networks:
      - autostop

  users-service-db:
    command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=password
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=users_db
    restart: always  
    image: mysql:5.7.20
    ports:
      - 0.0.0.0:3306:3306
    networks:
      - autostop

...

When I run docker-compose build or docker-compose up --build it shows

$ yarn db:migrate && babel-watch -L src/index.js
users-service_1     | $ sequelize db:migrate
users-service_1     | /bin/sh: sequelize: not found

Solution

The problem is that when you map the volume, even the node_modules get overridden by the host folder. And if you don’t have node_modules in the host source code it won’t work. So what you want is to mask the container’s node_modules folder, so it doesn’t get impacted by host folder map

....

services:
  users-service:
    build: './users-service'
    depends_on:
      - users-service-db
    environment:
      - DB_URI=mysql://root:**********@users-service-db/users_db?charset=UTF8
    ports:
      - 7100:7100
    volumes:
      - ./users-service:/app
      - node_modules:/app/node_modules
    networks:
      - autostop

  users-service-db:
    command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=password
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=users_db
    restart: always  
    image: mysql:5.7.20
    ports:
      - 0.0.0.0:3306:3306
    networks:
      - autostop
volumes:
  node_modules:
...

By mapping it to a named volume, will make sure that the internal folder is not impacted by your outer host mapped folder