Executive Summary: Multi-stage Docker builds, image size optimization down to <100MB, non-root user execution, and container health check monitoring.

Containerizing application workloads ensures 100% environment parity between local development and cloud production. ### 1. Multi-Stage Builds for Minimal Image Size By separating build dependencies (compilers, npm devDependencies) from runtime execution layers, production Docker images drop from 1.2GB down to under 90MB. ### 2. Running as Non-Root User Never run production Docker containers as root. Specify unprivileged system users (USER node or USER www-data) to prevent container breakout vulnerabilities. ### 3. Container Resource Limits & Logging Configure CPU and RAM limits (deploy.resources.limits) in Docker Compose to prevent any single buggy process from starving adjacent container services.