danmasta / config

Configuration helper for node apps

Config

Configuration helper for node apps

Features:

• Easy to use
• Load .js, or .json files
• Exports plain javascript objects
• Safe by default
• Exported config is immutable and constant
• Flexible configuration via environment variables or cmd args
• Helps prevent many config related bugs and vulnerabilities

About

We needed a better way to configure node apps. Other config packages out there were either too complex or not flexible enough. This package aims to be the simplest, most flexible config initializer possible. This package also exports config at run time as an immutable constant object that cannot be modified. It helps prevent an entire class of possible hard to track down bugs from code that might accidentally or intentionally overwrite config values during execution. It can also help prevent a whole class of potential vulnerabilities via environment hijack/overwritting from bad dependecies. You can import env variables into your config files at startup time via this package and they now become immutable.

Usage

Add config as a dependency for your app and install via npm

npm install @danmasta/config --save

Require the package in your app

const config = require('@danmasta/config');

Get values

const redis = require('redis');
const client = redis.createClient(config.redis);

Config Files

This package will attempt to load configuration files in the following order:

1. ./config/default
2. ./config/(NODE_ENV)
3. ./config/(CONFIG_GROUP)
4. ./config/(CONFIG)
5. ./config/(CONFIG_ID)

Config files can be .js or .json and they should export a plain object. They should also be named to match the options variable they represent, eg: production.js for NODE_ENV=production and development.js for NODE_ENV=development, etc. If you had a CONFIG_GROUP=eu variable set, for example, then you would also want to have an eu.js file.

module.exports = {
    redis: {
        host: '127.0.0.1',
        port: 6379
    }
};

If multiple files are found, they are merged with the default configuration and values are over written. This means you only need to add properties that have changed between environments

Env Variable/ CMD Options

Env Variable	Cmd Arg	Description
CONFIG_DIR	config-dir	Directory where config files are located. Default is ./config
CONFIG_GROUP	config-group	Config or process group name. Default is undefined
CONFIG	config	Useful for further specifying config values. Default is undefined
CONFIG_ID	config-id	Useful for further specifying config values. Default is undefined

Example

You can pass config names as cmd arguments or env variables and they will be set as environment variables before config files are loaded. This means you can do things like:

node app --config staging

NODE_ENV=ci,CONFIG=staging node app

This will load both the default config and then the staging config. This makes it super easy to run and/or test your app with different configs in multiple environments

Methods

Name	Description
env(key, val?)	Simple getter/setter for interacting with environment variables
argv(key)	Simple getter function for argv variables
deepFreeze(obj)	Recursively freezes an object to make it immutable
isUndefined(obj)	Checks if a value is undefined or 'undefined'
loadFromFile(str)	Loads data from a file path resolved from process.cwd, returns a regular mutable object
loadFromDir(str)	Loads data from a directory in a heirarchical order based on class instance settings, returns an immutable object
load()	Loads data from a directory based on settings, returns an immutable object
resolve()	Loads data from a directory based on settings, returns an immutable object

Options

name	type	description
enableArgv	boolean	Whether or not to enable cli argv helper options. Default is false
enableEnv	boolean	Whether or not to enable environment variable helper options. Default is false
setNodeEnv	boolean	Whether or not to set the NODE_ENV environment variable if not set already. Default is false
configDir	string	Directory to load configuration files from. Default is path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'config')
configGroup	string	Name of the config group file to load. This is a middle config file loaded in the chain. Default is undefined
config	string	Name of the config file to load. This is a middle config file loaded in the chain. Default is undefined
configId	string	Name of the config ID to load. This is the last config file loaded so it's the most specific and will override all others in the chain. Default is undefined
defaultConfigFileName	string	Name of the default configuration file to load. This is the first file loaded for everything. Default is default
warn	boolean	If true will write a message to stderr when a config file is not found. Default is false
throw	boolean	If true will throw an error when a config file is not found. Default is false

Safety

All objects exported from this package are immutable and constant by default. This means all own, inherited, and nested properties cannot be changed. Any attempt to assign or overwrite a property on the config object after export will silently fail

If you need to extend the config object or add/change values after initialization, you will have to create a new instance with your custom configuration and then call load() or resolve() and export that to your application

Examples

Set a property for two different environments

// ./config/default.js
module.exports = {
    redis: {
        host: 'redis.example.com',
        port: 6379
    }
};

// ./config/development.js
module.exports = {
    redis: {
        host: '127.0.0.1'
    }
};

Get a property value

Config exports a plain javascript object, so you can just use dot notation to access any nested value

config.redis.host // '127.0.0.1' in development
config.redis.port // 6379

Load config from a specific directory programatically

const Config = require('@danmasta/config/lib/config');

const config = new Config({
    configDir: '/test/config'
});

module.exports = config.resolve();

Use env variables with config for ultimate flexibility

const env = require('@danmasta/env');

// ./config/default.js
module.exports = {
    redis: {
        host: env('REDIS_HOST'),
        port: env('REDIS_PORT')
    }
};

You can now expose environment variables as native types and they become immutable as part of your config

Contact

If you have any questions feel free to get in touch