- Always use multi-stage builds to completely isolate build tools from the final production images.
- Cache dependencies fiercely. `COPY` package manager files and `RUN install` *before* copying the application code.
- Adopt Multi-Stage Docker builds to strictly decouple compilations/assets from final image binaries.
- Execute package installations (like `npm install`, `go mod download`, `pip install`) isolated *before* copying source files to heavily explicitly utilize Docker's Layer Caching.
- Switch to the least privileged user in the final image using the `USER` directive rather than defaulting to `root`.