Lucee + CommandBox in Docker: The Fastest ColdFusion Dev Environment Setup in 2025

The quickest way to a working ColdFusion/CFML development environment in 2025 is the official CommandBox Docker image running Lucee — no installer, no manual JVM setup, no configuring a web server, and an identical environment for every developer and CI runner. You pull ortussolutions/commandbox:lucee6 (the official CommandBox image from Ortus, with an engine-specific tag), mount your app into /app, and expose port 8080 — that's a running Lucee server in one command:

docker run -p 8080:8080 -v "$(pwd):/app" ortussolutions/commandbox:lucee6

From there, a small box.json (dependencies), an optional server.json (engine/port), and a .cfconfig.json (datasources/settings) make the environment fully declarative and version-controlled. Set BOX_INSTALL=true to install dependencies on start, BOX_SERVER_APP_CFENGINE to pick the engine (e.g. lucee@6), and cfconfig_-prefixed env vars (like cfconfig_adminPassword) to configure the server without touching a UI. A docker-compose.yml adds your database alongside it. The result: git clone → docker compose up → a full CFML stack in minutes, identical for everyone. This guide walks the whole setup, with the verified image tags, environment variables, and config files.
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