Setting the working directory in Docker

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Setting the working directory in Docker

Author：JIYIK Last Updated：2025/03/23 Views：

If present, the working directory of a process in Compute is a directory in a linked hierarchical file system that is dynamic for each process. In Docker, we can set our working directory by editing the Dockerfile and adding the key WORKDIR.

This article will discuss changing our current and default working directory in Docker.

WORKDIR in Docker

The WORKDIR directive in a Dockerfile determines the working directory for any RUN, CMD, ENTRYPOINT, COPY, and ADD instructions that follow it. We can use the WORKDIR directive multiple times in a Dockerfile.

If we provide a relative path, it will be relative to the path of the previous WORKDIR directive.

For example:

WORKDIR /usr
WORKDIR src/serv
RUN sampleserv

The output of the final sampleserv command in this Dockerfile will be /usr/src/serv.

The WORKDIR instruction can resolve environment variables previously specified using the ENV instruction. However, we can only use environment variables that are explicitly set in the Dockerfile.

ENV DIRPATH=/usr
WORKDIR $DIRPATH/$DIRNAME
RUN sampleserv

The output of the final sampleserv command in this Dockerfile will be /usr/$DIRNAME.

The default working directory is the root directory or /if not specified. In fact, if you are not creating a Dockerfile from scratch ( FROM scratch), the base image you are using may already have WORKDIR configured.

Therefore, we recommend setting your WORKDIR explicitly to prevent unexpected activity in unknown folders.

For clarity and reliability, we should always use an absolute path for your WORKDIR . Also, we should use WORKDIR instead of adding RUN cd … && sample-codedirectives like this that are difficult to read, troubleshoot, and maintain.

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