Python application in a container using Podman

Question

I'd like to build a container using Podman which would contains the following:

• a Python application
• the Python modules I developed but which are not stored at the same place than the Python application
• the Python environment (made with miniconda/mambaforge)
• a mounted folder for input data
• a mounted folder for output data

To do that, I've added a Dockerfile in my home directory. Below is the content of this Dockerfile:

FROM python:3

# Add the Python application
ADD /path/to/my_python_app /my_python_app

# Add the Python modules used by the Python application
ADD /path/to/my_modules /my_modules

# Add the whole mambaforge folder (contains the virtual envs) with the exact same path than the local one
ADD /path/to/mambaforge /exact/same/path/to/mambaforge

# Create a customized .bashrc (contains 'export PATH' to add mamba path and 'export PYTHONPATH' to add my_modules path)
ADD Dockerfile_bashrc /root/.bashrc

Then, I build the container with:

podman build -t python_app .

And run it with:

podman run -i -t -v /path/to/input/data:/mnt/input -v /path/to/output/data:/mnt/output python_app /bin/bash

In the Dockerfile, note I add the whole mambaforge (it is like miniconda). Is it possible to only add the virtual environment? I found I needed to add the whole mambaforge because I need to activate the virtual environment with mamba/conda activate my_env. Which I do in a .bashrc (with the conda initialization) that I put in /root/.bashrc. In this file, I also do export PYTHONPATH="/my_modules:$PYTHONPATH".

I'd also like to add the following line in my Dockerfile to execute automatically the Python application when running the container.

CMD ["python", "/path/to/my_python_app/my_python_app.py"]

However, this doesn't work because it seems the container needs to be run interactively in order to load the .bashrc first.

All of this is kludge and I'd like to know if there is a simpler and better way to do that?

Many thanks for your help!