It's a known limitation for Windows (don't worry too much, there is a good workaround)

This is a known limitation for Docker on Windows host. Here is what the Docker's documentation says about the problem:

inotify on shared drives does not work

Currently, inotify does not work on Docker for Windows. This will become evident, for example, when an application needs to read/write to a container across a mounted drive. Instead of relying on filesystem inotify, we recommend using polling features for your framework or programming language.

• Workaround for nodemon and Node.js - If you are using nodemon with Node.js, try the fallback polling mode described here: nodemon isn’t restarting node applications
• Docker for Windows issue on GitHub - See the issue Inotify on shared drives does not work

The workaround

However, the workaround is to use a polling mechanism:

• chokidar - A neat wrapper around node.js fs.watch / fs.watchFile / fsevents.
• nodemon - Monitor for any changes in your node.js application and automatically restart the server - perfect for development.
• webpack - If watching does not work for you, try out polling option. Watching does not work with NFS and machines in VirtualBox.
• etc ...

Complete Docker & React setup

Just for your case I've started react-create-app in a Docker container and livereload feature works perfect. The gotcha is to enable chokidar polling by creating .env configuration file.

Here are my configurations (inspired by @haluvibe):

Dockerfile

FROM node:6.9.4# Prepare app directoryRUN mkdir -p /usr/src/appWORKDIR /usr/src/app/# Install dependenciesCOPY package.json /usr/src/app/RUN npm install --silentADD . /usr/src/app/EXPOSE 3000CMD [ "npm", "start" ]

docker-compose.yml

version: "2"services:  frontend:    container_name: "boilerplate"    build: .    environment:      env_file: .env      NODE_ENV: development    ports:      - '3000:3000'    volumes:      - .:/usr/src/app

.env

CHOKIDAR_USEPOLLING=true

Scripts

• docker-compose up -d - Start your project and it will be available at http://localhost:3000.
• docker-compose run --rm boilerplate /bin/bash - Access your container.

some times livereload dose not work when the app is running inside a container, If the project runs inside a virtual machine such as (a Vagrant provisioned) VirtualBox, create an .env file in your project directory if it doesn’t exist, and add CHOKIDAR_USEPOLLING=true to it. This ensures that the next time you run npm start, the watcher uses the polling mode, as necessary inside a VM.