configvention

nodejs-configvention

A node.js configuration convention with a minimal readonly interface. Reads configuration values from the environment, arguments, override configuration file, defaults configuration file.

Available from npm as configvention.

Usage

import configuration from "configvention";

const something = configuration.get("something");

Installation

npm install --save configvention@latest

Convention

This is the order settings are read for the example node application my-app.js. configuration.get("something") will look for something in this order. When the the first something is found, the search is stopped and the value is returned.

• In arguments parsed from the command line, like node my-app.js --something 1234.
• In the environment variables, for something.
• In the JSON object from the file my-app.js.config.json, where my-app.js is the filename of your node app.
• In the JSON object from the file my-app.js.defaults.config.json, where my-app.js is the filename of your node app.

If something can't be found, then it returns undefined.

• my-app.js.config.json contains settings that apply to the current folder. This file should not be checked in to your version control system (git/hg/svn), but replaced by whoever is running the node app. It's different for, for example, developers on their own machines and production servers.
• my-app.js.defaults.config.json contains sane defaults and is checked in to version control system.

Neither my-app.js.config.json nor my-app.js.defaults.config.json are required, but you probably would like to have at least my-app.js.defaults.config.json.

Debugging

To get some insight on files loaded, configuration values read etcetera, enable debugging from the command line.

DEBUG='configvention:*' node my-app.js

Versions

For details, see git commits, git tags and published npm versions.

• Configvention >= v3.0.0:
  • ECMAScript Module (ESM) package.
  • For use with Node.js v16 or later.
• Configvention <= v2.0.0:
  • CommonJS (CJS) legacy package.
  • For use with all (?) Node.js versions.

Alternatives

Some alternatives found glancing over npm modules dependent on nconf.

• nconfs: node.js convention/library for multiple nconf settings.
• reconf: Recursive configuration file management with defaults and overrides for nconf.

Copyright © 2012, 2016, 2021, 2023, Joel Purra. All rights reserved.

When using nodejs-configvention, comply to at least one of the three available licenses: MIT, BSD-2-Clause, GPL-3.0-or-later. Please see the LICENSE files for details.