To start the dev server locally in docker:

docker container run -it --rm -p 3000:3000 -v $PWD:/app node:carbon-jessie-slim bash
Then cd into /app and run npm start or npm run watch

To connect to a database on the host machine use the following:

On Windows/Mac the host ip is host.docker.internal
For Ubuntu refer https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/docker-tip-65-get-your-docker-hosts-ip-address-from-in-a-container