Docker local dev

Run the MVP with Tesseract and Poppler preinstalled — no Windows PATH setup.

When to use Docker

Use Docker	Use native Windows
Want Tesseract without manual install	Already have Tesseract on PATH
Scanned PDF OCR (Poppler + pdf2image path)	Fastest edit-run loop with --reload
Match future Linux Cloud Run image	Debugging GCP ADC on Windows directly

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop running
• .env file (copy from .env.example)

Start

cd C:\path\to\faxautomation
copy .env.example .env
.\scripts\run-docker.ps1

Or:

docker compose up --build

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000

GCP from inside Docker

Document AI and Vertex need the service account JSON inside the container.

1. Put your key at faxautomation/secrets/gcp-sa.json (same file as native dev)
2. docker-compose.yml mounts faxautomation/secrets → /secrets/ and sets: GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/secrets/gcp-sa.json
3. You do not need a Windows path in .env for Docker — compose overrides it

docker compose down
docker compose up --build

Common error: File faxautomation\secrets\gcp-sa.json was not found — means the container received a Windows path from .env. Rebuild after updating docker-compose.yml (fixed above).

Alternative: gcloud auth application-default login on host — mount ADC file instead (see commented lines in older compose docs); service account JSON is simpler.

Stop

docker compose down

Build only

docker build -t faxautomation:local .

HIPAA

Do not mount real PHI PDF folders into the container in git-tracked configs. Use local samples/ (gitignored) only.