diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 7b9ec5c4c..8348f4ae4 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -3,8 +3,10 @@
 node_modules/
 coverage/
 .idea/
+.pnpm-store/
 
 dist
+v8-compile-cache-0
 
 yarn-error.log
 .npmrc
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index a9837b06a..e8ac09325 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -14,14 +14,30 @@ Please read in detail about how to contribute documentation and code on the [Mer
 
 ## Development Installation
 
+If you don't have direct access to push to mermaid repositories, make a fork first. Then clone. Or clone directly from mermaid-js:
+
 ```bash
 git clone git@github.com:mermaid-js/mermaid.git
 cd mermaid
+```
+
+Install required packages:
+
+```bash
 # npx is required for first install as volta support for pnpm is not added yet.
 npx pnpm install
 pnpm test
 ```
 
+### Docker
+
+If you are using docker and docker-compose, you have self-documented `run` bash script, which is a convenient alias for docker-compose commands:
+
+```bash
+./run install # npx pnpm install
+./run test # pnpm test
+```
+
 ## Testing
 
 ```bash
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2762f3b99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+version: '3.9'
+services:
+  mermaid:
+    image: node:18.16.0-alpine3.18
+    stdin_open: true
+    tty: true
+    working_dir: /mermaid
+    volumes:
+      - ./:/mermaid
diff --git a/run b/run
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..6afe76eee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/run
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+RUN="docker-compose run --rm"
+command=$1
+args=${@:2}
+
+case $command in
+
+sh)
+$RUN mermaid sh $args
+;;
+
+install)
+$RUN mermaid sh -c "npx pnpm install"
+;;
+
+test)
+$RUN mermaid sh -c "npx pnpm test"
+;;
+
+lint)
+$RUN mermaid sh -c "npx pnpm -w run lint:fix"
+;;
+
+help)
+cat <<EOF
+Run commonly used commands within docker containers
+
+$0 install         # Equvalent of pnpm install 
+$0 lint            # Equvalent of pnpm -w run lint:fix
+$0 sh              # Open sh inside docker container for development
+
+$0 help            # Show this help
+EOF
+;;
+
+*)
+$0 help
+;;
+
+esac
\ No newline at end of file