Docker optimization by Cursor (#2)

* fix: correct docker-compose.yml quoting and localhost typo

Remove unnecessary inner quotes from YAML env var defaults. Fix localhohst typo in REACT_APP_API_URL.

Made-with: Cursor

* chore: add .dockerignore, .gitignore updates, and optimize Dockerfile

Add .dockerignore to exclude dev/build artifacts from Docker context. Exclude venv from git. Optimize Dockerfile with separate dependency and source layers for faster rebuilds.

Made-with: Cursor

---------

Co-authored-by: NeonClary <askclary@gmail.com>

.dockerignore

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+**/node_modules
+**/venv
+**/.venv
+**/__pycache__
+**/chromadb_storage
+**/chroma_data
+**/chroma_db
+.git
+.gitignore
+.env
+**/.env
+.vscode
+.cursor
+**/.idea
+**/.DS_Store
+**/Thumbs.db
+docker-compose.yml
+Dockerfile
+.dockerignore
+*.md

.gitignore

@@ -21,3 +21,6 @@ phd-advisor-frontend/firebase.json
 # Ignore all __pycache__ folders
 **/__pycache__/
 
+
+# Python virtual environments
+**/venv/

Dockerfile

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1
 FROM node:24-bookworm AS base
 
 LABEL vendor=neon.ai \
@@ -12,18 +13,28 @@ RUN apt-get update && \
     python3 \
     python3-pip
 
-COPY . /ccai
+# ---- Python dependencies (cached unless requirements.txt changes) ----------
 WORKDIR /ccai/multi_llm_chatbot_backend
+COPY multi_llm_chatbot_backend/requirements.txt ./
+RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.cache/pip \
+    pip install --break-system-packages -r requirements.txt
 
-RUN pip install --no-cache-dir --break-system-packages -r requirements.txt
+# ---- Node dependencies (cached unless package.json changes) ----------------
+WORKDIR /ccai/phd-advisor-frontend
+COPY phd-advisor-frontend/package.json phd-advisor-frontend/package-lock.json* ./
+RUN --mount=type=cache,target=/root/.npm \
+    npm install
 
-FROM base AS backend
+# ---- Copy the rest of the source code (this layer changes often) -----------
+WORKDIR /ccai
+COPY . .
 
+# ---- Backend target --------------------------------------------------------
+FROM base AS backend
+WORKDIR /ccai/multi_llm_chatbot_backend
 CMD ["uvicorn", "app.main:app", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8000"]
 
+# ---- Frontend target -------------------------------------------------------
 FROM base AS frontend
 WORKDIR /ccai/phd-advisor-frontend
-
-RUN npm install
-
 CMD [ "npm", "start" ]

docker-compose.yml

@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@ services:
     environment:
       MONGODB_CONNECTION_STRING: "mongodb://database:27017"
       MONGODB_DATABASE: phd_advisor
-      JWT_SECRET_KEY: ${JWT_SECRET_KEY:-"CHANGEME-by-overriding-in-dot-env-file"}
+      JWT_SECRET_KEY: ${JWT_SECRET_KEY:-CHANGEME-by-overriding-in-dot-env-file}
       GEMINI_API_KEY: ${GEMINI_API_KEY:-?}
-      CORS_ORIGINS: ${CORS_ORIGINS:-"http://localhost:3000"}
+      CORS_ORIGINS: ${CORS_ORIGINS:-http://localhost:3000}
       GEMINI_MODEL: gemini-2.5-flash
   frontend:
     build:
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ services:
     depends_on:
       - backend
     environment:
-      REACT_APP_API_URL: ${REACT_APP_API_URL:-"http://localhohst:8000"}
+      REACT_APP_API_URL: ${REACT_APP_API_URL:-http://localhost:8000}
   database:
     image: mongo:8.0
     volumes: