build: 🧑‍💻 specify nodemon and remove USER directive for dev container

[HannesOberreiter]

• Updated the base image in Dockerfile.dev from node:18-alpine to node:lts-alpine to use more or less the same as for production docker build (where the client is build lts and server is 18... so yeah not really...)
• Removed the USER node directive, to prevent permission issues as we hook the whole folder into the container.
• Modified the docker-compose-dev.yml file to enhance the database healthcheck. The new healthcheck ensures not only postgres is ready but also the database is ready by running a sample query (SELECT 1) and adjusts the interval, retries, and start period for better reliability.
• Added a nodemon.json configuration file to watch only relevant files (node_modules would be ignored but not files like the python venv) and avoid rapid successive restarts with the delay.

[meltyshev]

Hi! Thanks for the improvements 🙏

Just a quick question: the main Dockerfile also uses the node:18-alpine image. I'm a bit concerned that a new Node.js version could introduce breaking changes. Shouldn't we pin the version to node:18-alpine for consistency?

[HannesOberreiter]

It's preferable to use a similar environment for both development and build. I noticed that your production container uses node:lts to build the client. Therefore, I assumed this might be intentional, perhaps due to the fact that Node.js 18 is now end-of-life, and many frontend libraries have already adopted Node.js 20 as the minimum supported version. I tested both the server and client using the current LTS version (Node.js 22), and everything—including npm install—ran without issues. However, I haven't performed thorough testing yet.

[meltyshev]

It's preferable to use a similar environment for both development and build. I noticed that your production container uses node:lts to build the client. Therefore, I assumed this might be intentional, perhaps due to the fact that Node.js 18 is now end-of-life, and many frontend libraries have already adopted Node.js 20 as the minimum supported version. I tested both the server and client using the current LTS version (Node.js 22), and everything—including npm install—ran without issues. However, I haven't performed thorough testing yet.

Oh, you're right. I thought the client's Node.js version in the production Dockerfile was pinned too :)