@simpleworkjs/conf

ALERT!

This is part of a larger project i am working on and is in ALPHA state!

Usage

Install the package using

npm install --save @simpleworkjs/conf

In your project, make a conf or settings directory or where ever you would like to save configuration files. Make a index.js with:

module.export = require('npm i @simpleworkjs/conf')

and require the conf directory where ever in your project you want to the conf object.

It required to have a base conf file like base.js or base.JSON. Optionaly, you can have a production, development, secrets conf file.

It is highly recommended you git ignore the secrets file

What is a conf object?

A Configuration Object (key:value pair) holds run time variables that will be used thought out the app. These variables include things like server address for API's and data base, username/password/tokens, limits for actions, what should be logged, and much more. There are several ways to handle runtime configuration. Some of these variables are sensitive information you do not want to be included in the git repo. For the rest of this document, we will follow a multi-tired settings strategy inspired by Django. The terms "settings", "configuration", "conf" will used interchangeable.

The goal is to build a single Object comprising key: value pairs of the settings your project needs when it runs. We dont want to hard code these values for a number of reasons, take the following settings object:

{
	copyrightMessage: "myCoolApp © 2024 ",
	featureAPI:{
		url: "https://api.coolCompany.com/api/v0",
		token: '234-234sdf-23s-sdf2323sdf-sdfe234-'
	},
	logInfo: false,
	logPath: '/var/log/myCoolApp/app.log'
}

Based on the above, lets look at some main reasons we cant get by with a single configuration file:

1. Things like featureAPI.url and logPath will likely change depending one where (production, staging, local dev) the app is running. So we want to be able to define settings based on the current environment.

2. featureAPI.token is a secret we dont want to share with the world. We dont want that information tracked in the git repo.

3. copyrightMessage is a rather generic and universal thing we want used everywhere.

Based on these requirements, we will have 3 "configuration files" that over ride each other.

base.js
production.js or development.js or any other environment name that makes sense
secrets.js

base.js and the environment conf files will be tracked in the repo for the world to see. secrets.js will be ignored by the git repo, as its to hold secrets and settings that only pertain to the local useage.

The base.js file will be loaded first. Then the environment file matching the current environment will be loaded, overwriting any values in base. Finlay, secrets.js is loaded, overwriting any files from both base and environment.

The only required file is base.js. The app will throw warning to the console if an environment and/or secrets.js are not found, but the app will run.