Roosevelt MVC web framework

Roosevelt is a web application development framework based on Express that aims to be the easiest web framework on the Node.js stack to learn and use.
Some notable features:
- Minimal boilerplate to get started. Teddy Roosevelt—the most badass President of all-time—curtailed the abuse of monopolists, so there's no way he would ever put up with all the indecipherable boilerplate common to other web frameworks.
- Default directory structure is simple, but easily configured.
- Concise default MVC architecture.
- Uses Teddy HTML templates by default which are much easier to read and maintain than popular alternatives. Can be configured to use any templating system that supports Express.
- LESS preconfigured out of the box to intelligently minify your external facing CSS files. There's also built-in support for Sass, and Stylus. Other CSS preprocessors can be used as well with a bit of extra configuration.
- Built-in, easy to use interface for creating Webpack bundles for modularizing and minifying your frontend JS.
- Automatic server reloading when your backend code changes (via nodemon) and automatic browser reloading when your frontend code changes (via reload).
- Automatic HTML validation in development mode of your post-server rendered HTML using a local instance of the Nu HTML Checker.


Note: this is documentation for the current version of Roosevelt. If you need API documentation for a previous version of Roosevelt, look here.
Table of contents
Create and run a Roosevelt app
First you will need to install Node.js. Both the current and LTS version of Node.js are supported. It is recommended that you install using a Node.js version manager like nvm rather than the official installer, as a version manager will allow you to switch between multiple versions of Node.js easily.
Some important caveats to note:
The Java JDK is also required for development work. The JDK is required for the local HTML validator feature.
Once you have a sane development environment, you can proceed with the standard install procedure below.
Using the Roosevelt app generator
The Roosevelt app generator is a command line script based on Yeoman that can create a sample Roosevelt app for you.
To use it, first globally install Yeoman and the Yeoman-based Roosevelt app generator:
npm i -g yo generator-roosevelt
Create a Roosevelt app using the Roosevelt app generator:
yo roosevelt
Then follow the prompts.
Afterward, cd
to your app's directory and install dependencies:
npm i
Run in development mode:
npm run d
Or run in production mode:
npm run p
Create a Roosevelt app manually
It is also possible to create a Roosevelt app without using the app generator. This will result in a more minimalist default configuration (e.g. no CSS or JS preprocessors enabled by default).
To do that:
-
First create a new folder and cd
into it.
-
Then npm i roosevelt
. This will create a node_modules
folder with Roosevelt and its bare minimum dependencies.
-
Create a file named app.js
.
-
Put this code in app.js
:
require('roosevelt')({
'generateFolderStructure': true
}).startServer()
-
Then node app.js
. If the generateFolderStructure
parameter is set to true like the above code example, an entire Roosevelt app with bare minimum viability will be created and the server will be started. See below for more information about parameter configuration.
Available npm scripts
Roosevelt apps created with the app generator come with the following notable npm scripts prepopulated in package.json:
npm run dev-install
: Installs Roosevelt with its devDependencies to support running Roosevelt in development mode.
- Default shorthands:
- Script is short for:
cd ./node_modules/roosevelt && npm install --only=dev
npm run dev-prune
: Removes Roosevelt's devDependencies to support deploying Roosevelt apps with smaller production builds. Note: can prevent being able to run Roosevelt in development mode.
- Default shorthands:
- Script is short for:
cd ./node_modules/roosevelt && npm prune --production
npm run production
: Runs the app in production mode.
- Default shorthands:
npm run prod
npm run p
npm start
- Script is short for:
nodemon app.js --production-mode
npm run development
: Runs the app in development mode.
- Default shorthands:
- Script is short for:
nodemon app.js --development-mode
npm run proddev
: Runs the app in production mode, but with the public folder hosted by the Roosevelt app. This is useful for doing development in production mode without having to stage a complex simulation of your production environment, which would likely include hosting static files via another web server better-suited to serving statics like Apache or nginx.
- Default shorthands:
- Script is short for:
nodemon app.js --host-public
npm run kill-validator
: Finds the HTML validator process and kills it if it is running.
- Default shorthand:
- Script is short for:
node ./node_modules/roosevelt/lib/scripts/killValidator.js
npm run clean
: Removes all build artifacts (symlinks and directories) auto-generated by Roosevelt. Will prompt to confirm before deleting any files.
- Default shorthand:
- Script is short for:
node ./node_modules/roosevelt/lib/scripts/appCleanup.js
npm run config-audit
: Scans current rooseveltConfig
and scripts
in package.json
and warns about any parameters or npm scripts that don't match the current Roosevelt API:
- Default shorthand:
- Script is short for:
node ./node_modules/roosevelt/lib/scripts/configAuditor.js
- Note: this will run automatically whenever you run
npm i
as well.
Available command line arguments
node app.js --production-mode
: Runs the app in production mode.
node app.js --development-mode
: Runs the app in development mode.
node app.js --cores <m>
: Configures how many CPUs your app will run on.
<m>
can be either a number representing the desired cores, or you can supply max
to use all available CPUs.
- Default shorthand:
node app.js --enable-validator
: Forces the HTML validator to be enabled.
node app.js --disable-validator
: Forces the HTML validator to be disabled.
node app.js --background-validator
: Forces the HTML validator to run as a detached background process.
node app.js --attach-validator
: Forces the HTML validator to run as an attached process.
node app.js --enable-validator-autokiller
: Forces the HTML validator autokiller to be enabled.
- Default shorthands:
--html-validator-autokiller
-k
node app.js --disable-validator-autokiller
: Forces the HTML validator autokiller to be disabled.
node app.js --host-public
: Forces Roosevelt to always host the public folder even when alwaysHostPublic
is set to false. Useful for testing production mode.
Combining npm scripts and command line arguments
The npm scripts can be combined with the command line flags.
For example, running npm run d -- -r
will run your app in development mode and force the HTML validator to be disabled.
Recognized environment variables
The following is a list of environment variables that Roosevelt listens for.
NODE_ENV
:
- Set to
production
to force the app into production mode. - Set to
development
to force the app into development mode.
NODE_PORT
: Default HTTP port to run your app on.HTTP_PORT
: Default HTTP port to run your app on. Takes precedence over NODE_PORT
.HTTPS_PORT
: Default HTTPS port to run your app on.ROOSEVELT_VALIDATOR
:
- Set to
detached
to force the HTML validator to run as a detached background process. - Set to
attached
to force the HTML validator to run as an attached process.
ROOSEVELT_AUTOKILLER
:
- Set to
on
to spawn a process to kill the HTML validator if it is running in the background and idle for more than a certain amount of time. The timeout can be configured in app behavior parameters. - Set to
off
to disable the HTML validator autokiller.
Environment variable precedence:
Default directory structure
app.js
: Entry point to your application. Feel free to rename this, but make sure to update package.json
's reference to it.mvc
: Folder for models, views, and controllers. All configurable via parameters (see below).
controllers
: Folder for controller files.models
: Folder for model files.views
: Folder for view files.
node_modules
: A standard folder where all modules your app depends on (such as Roosevelt) are installed to. This folder is created by the npm i
command.package.json
: A standard file in Node.js apps for configuring your app.public
: All contents within this folder will be exposed as static files.statics
: Folder for source CSS, image, JS, and other static files. By default some of the contents of this folder are symlinked to from public, which you can configure (see below).
css
: Folder for source CSS files.images
: Folder for source image files.js
: Folder for source JS files.
.gitignore
: A standard file which contains a list of files and folders to ignore if your project is in a git repo.
Default .gitignore
The default .gitignore
file contains many common important things to ignore, however you may need to tweak it to your liking before committing a fresh Roosevelt app to your git repo.
Some notable things ignored by default and why:
public
: It's recommended that you don't create files in this folder manually, but instead use the statics
parameter detailed below to expose folders in your statics
directory via auto-generated symlinks.node_modules
: This folder will be auto-generated when you run the npm i
step to set up your app. Since some modules you might include later in your app can be platform-specific and are compiled for your OS during the install step, it's generally not recommended to commit the node_modules
folder to git.
Configure your app with parameters
Roosevelt is designed to have a minimal amount of boilerplate so you can spend less time focused on configuration and more time writing your app. All parameters are optional. As such, by default, all that's in app.js is this:
require('roosevelt')().startServer();
Roosevelt will determine your app's name by examining "name"
in package.json
. If none is provided, it will use Roosevelt Express
instead.
There are multiple ways to pass a configuration to Roosevelt:
-
A rooseveltConfig.json
file located in the root directory of your app.
-
Via package.json under "rooseveltConfig"
.
-
Programmatically via Roosevelt's constructor like so:
require('roosevelt')({
paramName: 'paramValue',
param2: 'value2',
etc: 'etc'
}).startServer();
- This is particularly useful for setting parameters that can't be defined in
package.json
or rooseveltConfig.json
such as event handlers (see below).
In addition, all parameters support template literal style variables. For example:
{
"port": 4000,
"https": {
"port": "${port + 1}"
},
"css": {
"sourcePath": "css",
"output": ".build/${css.sourcePath}",
}
}
Resolves to:
{
"port": 4000,
"https": {
"port": 4001
},
"css": {
"sourcePath": "css",
"output": ".build/css",
}
}
App behavior parameters
-
port
: The HTTP port your app will run on.
- Default: [Number|String]
43711
.
-
mode
: The mode your application will start in.
- Default: [String]
production
.
-
enableCLIFlags
: Enables parsing of command line flags.
-
generateFolderStructure
: When enabled Roosevelt will generate user specified directories (e.g. MVC parameters and statics parameters).
-
appDir
: Root directory of your application.
- Default: [String] The directory where your project
package.json
is located.
-
localhostOnly
: Listen only to requests coming from localhost in production mode. This is useful in environments where it is expected that HTTP requests to your app will be proxied through a more traditional web server like Apache or nginx. This setting is ignored in development mode.
-
logging
: Parameters to pass to roosevelt-logger. See roosevelt-logger parameters documentation for configuration options.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"methods": {
"http": true,
"info": true,
"warn": true,
"error": true,
"verbose": false
}
}
-
You can also declare a custom log types and classify them as logs, warnings, or errors:
-
Default logging
parameter with custom log type called debug
added to it: [Object]
{
"http": true,
"info": true,
"warn": true,
"verbose": false,
"debug": {
"enable": true,
"type": "error"
}
}
-
minify
: Enables HTML minification as well as the minification step in supporting CSS and JS compilers.
-
htmlValidator
: Parameters to send to html-validator:
-
enable
: [Boolean] Enables or disables the built-in HTML validator.
- Note: The validator is only available in development mode.
-
exceptions
: Sending a custom request header can disable the validator on a per request basis. The name of this request header and model value can be customized with this parameter.
-
port
: [Number] Port to spawn the validator process on.
-
separateProcess
: [Object] How to run the validator:
-
enable
: [Boolean] Run the validator as a detached background process.
-
autoKiller
: [Boolean] Spawns a process to kill the validator if it is running in the background and idle for more than a certain amount of time.
-
autoKillerTimeout
: [Number] Time (in milliseconds) that the validator auto-killer process waits before it kills the validator running in the background.
- Note: You will see
"GET /roosevelt-dev-mode-ping HTTP/1.1" 404
in your HTTP logs when autoKiller
is enabled if you allow your app to idle in development mode. This is a normal behavior that the autokiller uses to determine if it should kill the validator process.
-
showWarnings
: [Boolean] When set to true, shows HTML validation warnings in addition to errors.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"enable": true,
"separateProcess": {
"enable": true,
"autoKiller": true,
"autoKillerTimeout": 360000
},
"port": 48888,
"exceptions": {
"requestHeader": "Partial",
"modelValue": "_disableValidator"
},
"showWarnings": true
}
-
formidable
: Settings to pass along to formidable using formidable's API for multipart form processing. Access files uploaded in your controllers by examining the req.files
object. Roosevelt will remove any files uploaded to the uploadDir
when the request ends automatically. To keep any, be sure to move them before the request ends. To disable multipart forms entirely, set this parameter to false.
-
Default: [Boolean]
{
"multiples": true
}
-
toobusy
: Parameters to pass to the node-toobusy module.
-
maxLagPerRequest
: [Number] Maximum amount of time (in milliseconds) a given request is allowed to take before being interrupted with a 503 error.
-
lagCheckInterval
: [Number] Interval (in milliseconds) for checking event loop lag in milliseconds.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"maxLagPerRequest": 70,
"lagCheckInterval": 500,
}
-
bodyParser
: Parameters to supply to the body-parser module.
-
urlEncoded
: [Object] Parameters to supply to body-parser.urlencoded.
-
json
: [Object] Parameters to supply to body-parser.json.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"urlEncoded": {
"extended": true
},
"json": {}
}
-
checkDependencies
: Whether or not to warn if dependencies are out of date.
-
cores
: By default, Roosevelt will run on 1 CPU, but you can change the number of cores that the app will run on with this parameter.
-
shutdownTimeout
: Maximum amount of time in milliseconds given to Roosevelt to gracefully shut itself down when sent the kill signal.
- Default: [Number]
30000
(30 seconds).
HTTPS parameters
https
: [Object] Run a HTTPS server using Roosevelt.
-
Object members:
-
enable
: Enable a HTTPS server.
- Default: [Boolean]
false
.
-
force
: Disallow unencrypted HTTP and route all traffic through HTTPS.
- Default: [Boolean]
false
.
-
port
: The port your app will run a HTTPS server on.
-
authInfoPath
: [Object] Specify either the paths where the server certificate files can be found or set the appropriate parameters to be a PKCS#12-formatted string or certificate or key strings.
-
Default: undefined
.
-
Object members:
-
caCert
: [String] Either the path to a PEM-encoded Certificate Authority root certificate or certificate chain or a PEM-encoded Certificate Authority root certificate or certificate chain string. This certificate (chain) will be used to verify client certificates presented to the server. It is only needed if requestCert
and rejectUnauthorized
are both set to true
and the client certificates are not signed by a Certificate Authority in the default publicly trusted list of CAs curated by Mozilla.
-
requestCert
: [Boolean] Set whether to request a certificate from the client attempting to connect to the server to verify the client's identity.
-
rejectUnauthorized
: [Boolean] Set whether to reject connections from clients that do no present a valid certificate to the server. (Ignored if requestCert
is set to false
.)
-
Default: [Object] {}
.
MVC parameters
-
modelsPath
: Relative path on filesystem to where your model files are located.
- Default: [String]
"mvc/models"
.
-
viewsPath
: Relative path on filesystem to where your view files are located.
- Default: [String]
"mvc/views"
.
-
viewEngine
: What templating engine to use, formatted as "fileExtension: nodeModule"
.
-
generator-roosevelt default: [String] "html: teddy"
.
-
Also by default when using the generator, the module teddy is marked as a dependency in package.json
.
-
Bare Roosevelt default (when an app is created without the generator): [String] none
. Can also be set to null
to use no templating engine.
-
To use multiple templating systems, supply an array of engines to use in the same string format. Each engine you use must also be marked as a dependency in your app's package.json
. Whichever engine you supply first with this parameter will be considered the default.
-
Example configuration using multiple templating systems: [Object]
{
"viewEngine": [
"html: teddy",
"mustache: mustache",
"handlebars: handlebars",
"ejs: ejs"
]
}
-
controllersPath
: Relative path on filesystem to where your controller files are located.
- Default: [String]
"mvc/controllers"
.
-
errorPages
: Relative path on filesystem to where your various error page controller files are located. If you do not supply them, Roosevelt will use its default ones instead:
-
routePrefix
: [String] A subdirectory to mount your application to. Applies to all routes and static files.
-
Example: When set to "foo"
a route bound to /
will be instead be bound to /foo/
.
-
Note: This prefix is exposed via the routePrefix
Express variable which should be used for resolving the absolute paths to statics programmatically.
- Example: An image located at
/images/teddy.jpg
can be resolved in a prefix agnostic way via `${app.get('routePrefix')/images/teddy.jpg}`
.
-
Default: null
.
Statics parameters
-
staticsRoot
: Relative path on filesystem to where your source static assets are located. By default this folder will not be made public, but is instead meant to store unprocessed or uncompressed source assets that will later be preprocessed and exposed in public
.
- Default: [String]
"statics"
.
-
htmlMinifier
: How you want Roosevelt to minify your HTML:
-
enable
: [Boolean] Enable HTML minification.
-
Note: Minification is automatically disabled in development mode.
-
exceptionRoutes
: [Array] List of controller routes that will skip minification entirely. Set to false
to minify all URLs.
-
options
: [Object] Parameters to supply to html-minifier's API.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"enable": true,
"exceptionRoutes": false,
"options": {
"removeComments": true,
"collapseWhitespace": true,
"collapseBooleanAttributes": true,
"removeAttributeQuotes": true,
"removeEmptyAttributes": true
}
}
-
css
: [Object] How you want Roosevelt to configure your CSS preprocessor:
-
sourcePath
: Subdirectory within staticsRoot
where your CSS files are located. By default this folder will not be made public, but is instead meant to store unminified CSS source files which will be minified and written to a build directory when the app is started.
-
compiler
: [Object] Which CSS preprocessor (if any) to use.
-
enable
: [Boolean] Whether or not to use a preprocessor.
-
module
: [String] Node module name of the CSS preprocessor you wish to use.
-
Note: Currently less, node-sass, and stylus are supported.
-
Note: Your chosen CSS preprocessor module must also be marked as a dependency in your app's package.json
.
-
options
: [Object] Parameters to send to the CSS preprocessor if it accepts any.
-
minifier
: [Object] Params pertaining to CSS minifcation.
-
enable
: [Boolean] Whether or not to minify css.
- Note: Can also be controlled by the
minify
param, which is disabled in development mode.
-
options
: [Object] Parameters to pass to the CSS minifier clean-css, a list of which can be found in the clean-css docs.
-
whitelist
: Array of CSS files to whitelist for compiling. Leave undefined to compile all files. Supply a :
character after each file name to delimit an alternate file path and/or file name for the minified file.
- Example array member: [String]
less/example.less:.build/css/example.min.css
(compiles less/example.less
into .build/css/example.min.css
).
-
output
: Subdirectory within publicFolder
where compiled CSS files will be written to.
-
versionFile
: If enabled, Roosevelt will create a CSS file which declares a CSS variable containing your app's version number from package.json
. Enable this option by supplying an object with the member variables fileName
and varName
.
-
Default: null
.
-
Example usage (with roosevelt-less): [Object]
{
"fileName": "_version.less",
"varName": "appVersion"
}
-
Assuming the default Roosevelt configuration otherwise, this will result in a file statics/css/_version.less
with the following content:
@appVersion: '0.1.0';
-
Some things to note:
-
If there is already a file there with that name, this will overwrite it, so be careful!
-
It's generally a good idea to add this file to .gitignore
, since it is a build artifact.
-
Default: [Object]
{
"sourcePath": "css",
"compiler": {
"enable" : false,
"module": "less",
"options": {}
},
"minifier": {
"enable": true,
"options": {}
},
"whitelist": null,
"output": "css",
"versionFile": null
}
-
js
: [Object] How you want Roosevelt to configure your JS compiled:
-
sourcePath
: Subdirectory within staticsRoot
where your JS files are located. By default this folder will not be made public, but is instead meant to store unminified JS source files which will be minified and written to a build directory when the app is started.
-
webpack
: Parameters related to bundling JS with Webpack:
-
Default: [Object]
{
"sourcePath": "js",
"webpack": {
"enable": false,
"bundles": [],
}
}
-
frontendReload
: Settings to use for the reload module which automatically reloads your browser when your frontend code changes.
-
clientViews
: [Object] Allows you to expose view code to frontend JS for client-side templating.
-
exposeAll
: [Boolean] Option to expose all templates. This will exclude templates that have <!-- roosevelt-blacklist -->
at the top of the file or those listed in the blacklist
property of clientViews
.
- Default: [Boolean]
false
.
-
blacklist
: [Array] of [Strings] List of files or folders excluded when exposeAll
is on.
-
whitelist
: [Object] List of JS files to create mapped to which view files to expose.
-
Default: [Object] of [Arrays] {}
.
-
Example:
{
"mainLayouts.js": ["baseLayout.html", "footer.html"],
"forms.js": ["forms/formTemplate.html"]
}
-
defaultBundle
: [String] File name for the default location of templates if not specified with the <!-- roosevelt-whitelist <filepath> -->
tag at the top of any template.
- Default: [String]
"bundle.js"
.
-
output
: [String] Subdirectory within publicFolder
to define where to save the view JS bundles.
-
Default: [String] "templates"
.
-
minify
: [Boolean] Option to minify templates that are exposed via this feature.
-
Default: [Boolean] true
.
-
minifyOptions
: [Object] Parameters to supply to html-minifier's API.
-
Uses the params you set in htmlMinifier.options
if empty.
-
Default: [Object]
"clientViews": {
"exposeAll": false,
"blacklist": [],
"whitelist": {},
"defaultBundle": "bundle.js",
"output": "templates",
"minify": true,
"minifyOptions": {}
}
Public folder parameters
-
publicFolder
: All files and folders in this directory will be exposed as static files in development mode or when alwaysHostPublic
is enabled.
- Default: [String]
"public"
.
-
favicon
: Location of your favicon file.
-
symlinks
: [Array] Declare one or more symlinks to be generated at run time.
-
source
: [String] Path to be linked to.
- Note: Will not attempt to generate a symlink to a source path that does not exist.
-
dest
: [String] Path to place symlink
- Note: If this destination path already exists it will not be overwritten.
-
Default: [Array] of [Objects]
[
{
"source": "${staticsRoot}/images",
"dest": "${publicFolder}/images"
}
]
-
versionedPublic
: If set to true, Roosevelt will prepend your app's version number from package.json
to your public folder. Versioning your public folder is useful for resetting your users' browser cache when you release a new version.
- Default: [Boolean]
false
.
-
alwaysHostPublic
: By default in production mode Roosevelt will not expose the public folder. It's recommended instead that you host the public folder yourself directly through another web server, such as Apache or nginx. However, if you wish to override this behavior and have Roosevelt host your public folder even in production mode, then set this setting to true.
- Default: [Boolean]
false
.
Events
Roosevelt provides a series of events you can attach code to by passing a function to the desired event as a parameter to Roosevelt's constructor like so:
require('roosevelt')({
onServerStart: (app) => { }
});
Event list
onServerInit(app)
: Fired when the server begins starting, prior to any actions taken by Roosevelt. Note: the multipart
, routes
, and roosevelt:state
Express variables exposed by Roosevelt are not available yet during this event.
onServerStart(app)
: Fired when the server starts.
onReqStart(req, res, next)
: Fired at the beginning of each new request.
req
: The request object created by Express.res
: The response object created by Express.next
: Callback to continue with the request. Must be called to continue the request.
onReqBeforeRoute(req, res, next)
: Fired just before executing the controller.
req
: The request object created by Express.res
: The response object created by Express.next
: Callback to continue with the request. Must be called to continue the request.
onReqAfterRoute(req, res)
: Fired after the request ends.
onClientViewsProcess(template)
: Fired to preprocess templates before being exposed to the client
template
: A string containing a template written in any templating engine (Teddy, Pug, Handlebars, etc)
Making controller files
Controller files are places to write Express routes. A route is the term Express uses for URL endpoints, such as http://yoursite/blog
or http://yoursite/about
.
To make a new controller, make a new file in the controllers directory. For example:
module.exports = (router, app) => {
router.route('/about').get((req, res) => {
let model = require('models/dataModel');
res.render('about', model);
});
};
Sometimes it is also useful to separate controller logic from your routing. This can be done by creating a reusable controller module.
An example would be creating a reusable controller for "404 Not Found" pages:
module.exports = (app, req, res) => {
let model = { content: 'Cannot find this page' };
res.status(404);
res.render('404', model);
}
Reusable controller modules differ from standard controller modules in that they accept req
and res
arguments in addition to app
. They are meant to be called from within routes rather than define new routes.
This allows them to be called at will in any other controller's route when needed:
const throw404 = require('controllers/notFound');
module.exports = (router, app) => {
router.route('/whatever').get((req, res) => {
if (something) {
let model = require('models/dataModel');
res.render('whatever', model);
}
else {
throw404(app, req, res);
}
});
};
Making model files
Since the above example requires a model file named dataModel
, you will need to make that too. To do that, place a file named dataModel.js
in mvc/models
.
Here's a simple example dataModel.js
data model:
module.exports = {some: 'data'};
Making view files
Views by default are Teddy templates. See the Teddy documentation for information about how to author Teddy templates.
You can also use different templating engines by tweaking Roosevelt's MVC parameters.
Express variables exposed by Roosevelt
Roosevelt supplies several variables to Express that you may find handy. Access them using app.get('variableName')
.
Express variable | Description |
---|
express | The Express module. |
router | Instance of router module used by Roosevelt. |
routePrefix | Prefix appended to routes via the routePrefix param. Will be '' if not set. |
routes | List of all routes loaded in the Express app by Roosevelt. |
viewEngine e.g. teddy by default | Any view engine(s) you define will be exposed as an Express variable. For instance, the default view engine is teddy. So by default app.get('teddy') will return the teddy module. |
view engine | Default view engine file extension, e.g. .html . |
formidable | The formidable module Roosevelt uses internally. Used for handling multipart forms. |
morgan | The morgan module Roosevelt uses internally. HTTP request logger middleware. |
logger | The roosevelt-logger module Roosevelt uses internally. Used for console logging. |
modelsPath | Full path on the file system to where your app's models folder is located. |
viewsPath or views | Full path on the file system to where your app's views folder is located. |
controllersPath | Full path on the file system to where your app's controllers folder is located. |
clientViewsBundledOutput | Full path on the file system to where your app's client exposed views folder is located |
staticsRoot | Full path on the file system to where your app's statics folder is located. |
publicFolder | Full path on the file system to where your app's public folder is located. |
cssPath | Full path on the file system to where your app's CSS source files are located. |
jsPath | Full path on the file system to where your app's JS source files are located. |
cssCompiledOutput | Full path on the file system to where your app's minified CSS files are located. |
env | Either development or production . |
params | The parameters you sent to Roosevelt. |
appDir | The directory the main module is in. |
appName | The name of your app derived from package.json . Uses "Roosevelt Express" if no name is supplied. |
appVersion | The version number of your app derived from package.json . |
package | The contents of package.json . |
roosevelt:state | Application state, e.g. disconnecting if the app is currently being shut down. |
Additionally the Roosevelt constructor returns the following object:
Roosevelt object members | Description |
---|
expressApp | [Object] The Express app created by Roosevelt. |
httpServer | [Object] The http server created by Roosevelt. httpServer is also available as a direct child of app , e.g. app.httpServer . |
httpsServer | [Object] The https server created by Roosevelt. httpsServer is also available as a direct child of app , e.g. app.httpsServer . |
initServer | [Method] Starts the HTML validator, sets up some middleware, runs the CSS and JS preprocessors, and maps routes, but does not start the HTTP server. Call this method manually first instead of startServer if you need to setup the Express app, but still need to do additional setup before the HTTP server is started. This method is automatically called by startServer once per instance if it has not yet already been called. Takes an optional callback. |
startServer | [Method] Calls the listen method of http , https , or both (depending on your configuration) to start the web server with Roosevelt's config. |
stopServer | [Method] Stops the server and takes an optional argument stopServer('close') which stops the server from accepting new connections before exiting. |
Express middleware and other configurations automatically loaded by Roosevelt
In addition to exposing a number of variables to Express and providing the MVC interface outlined above, Roosevelt also:
- Includes the compression middleware.
- Includes the cookie-parser middleware.
- Disables
x-powered-by
and etag
. - Logs HTTP requests to the console using morgan, specifically
morgan('combined')
. - Includes the method-override middleware.
Deployment
Removing dependencies unneeded in production
In contexts where you only need to run Roosevelt in production mode, you can remove some dependencies that are only needed in development mode in order to shrink the footprint of production builds.
The biggest development mode-only dependency you can remove is vnu-jar
. To remove it, run npm rm vnu-jar --no-save
.
The complete list of Roosevelt dependencies that are only needed in development mode is:
execa
fkill
html-validator
pid-from-port
prismjs
ps-node
reload
tamper
vnu-jar
To remove them all, run npm rm execa fkill html-validator pid-from-port prismjs ps-node reload tamper vnu-jar --no-save
.
Be sure none of those dependencies are needed elsewhere in your app first.
Authoring your own CSS preprocessors
In addition to Roosevelt's built-in support for the LESS, Sass, and Stylus preprocessors you can also define your own preprocessors on the fly at start time in Roosevelt's constructor like so:
let app = require('roosevelt')({
cssCompiler: app => {
return {
versionCode: app => {
},
parse: (app, filePath) => {
}
}
}
})
API:
cssCompiler(app)
: Custom CSS preprocessor.
versionCode(app)
: Function to return the version of your app.
parse(app, fileName)
: Function to preprocess CSS.
app
: The Express app created by Roosevelt.filePath
: The path to the file being compiled.
Note: When a custom preprocessor is defined in this way it will override the selected preprocessor specified in css.compiler.module
.
Documentation for previous versions of Roosevelt