Fixed .git copy destination inside Dockerfile

[Guiorgy]

In the Dockerfile in the app-builder stage the .git directory is copied:

COPY .git .git

And then later in the same stage it is supposedly removed:

# Build the JS vendor code in the app-builder, and then remove the vendor source.
RUN export CPPFLAGS="-DPNG_ARM_NEON_OPT=0" && \
    npm install -g corepack && \
    ... # skipped for brevity
    rm -rf node_modules \
           ... # skipped for brevity, attention to below VVV
           /pgadmin4/.git

I say supposedly, because the .git directory is copied into the filesystem root directory (/), whereas, the rest of the project files are inside the pgadmin4 directory, and the later command expects the .git directory to be inside it. Clearly a mistake, it was supposed to be copied into /pgadmin4/.git.

Using docker build --target app-builder --tag "pgadmin4:app-builder-stage" . to only build and export this stage, and then dive pgadmin4:app-builder-stage to explore the layers, I confirmed that:

With that being said, is the .git directory even needed during the build process? If not, it would be better to completely omit the copy to save on having to copy more than 366 MB (the size of .git as of writing) into the Docker image each time, which takes some time.

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed the deployment/build process so repository files are copied and cleaned consistently, resolving build-time file-handling issues and improving reliability across environments.

_{✏️ Tip: You can customize this high-level summary in your review settings.}

[coderabbitai]

Caution

Review failed

The pull request is closed.

Walkthrough

Updated the Dockerfile COPY instruction to place the repository metadata at /pgadmin4/.git instead of copying .git to the repository root, matching downstream build and cleanup steps that reference the /pgadmin4/.git path.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Change Summary
Docker build configuration Dockerfile	Modified COPY of the .git directory to target /pgadmin4/.git rather than .git at the image root, aligning with subsequent build/cleanup steps that reference the /pgadmin4 path

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~2 minutes

• Check Dockerfile for any other COPY or path assumptions still pointing to root .git
• Verify build steps that remove or reference /pgadmin4/.git behave as expected

Possibly related PRs

• Optimized Dockerfile #9378 — Also adjusts Dockerfile COPY operations and redirects repository files into /pgadmin4/, related to the same path-targeting change.

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately and concisely describes the main change: fixing the .git copy destination in the Dockerfile to target /pgadmin4/.git instead of the root.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f4bff51 and cdefb5a.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• Dockerfile (1 hunks)

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[Guiorgy]

The only possible benefit to copying the .git directory in the build process, that I can see, is to get and store the git revision/hash, but even that has much better ways of handling, such as passing it from the host as a build argument. do we really need to be copying the whole .git directory into the image? It wasn't even being correctly copied until now anyway :D

PS. Gotta love flaky tests :P

[Guiorgy]

@akshay-joshi as I asked previously, is the .git directory really needed for the following npm and yarn commands? I didn't get the answer, and am not a web dev, so I wouldn't know.

Ideally, we'd avoid copying the .git directory all together, which only keeps on growing, slowing the image build.