envigor

envigor is a module that creates configuration objects for several modules and backing services based on what environment variables are available.

This is useful for automatically deciding configuration options for twelve-factor apps that run in environments like Heroku, where several different choices of addon can be provisioned to provide the same service: calling envigor will check the environment variables for all known service providers (and a general set of variables for any services that may be set up manually / in-house), then create a config object that will connect to that service regardless of provider (envigor objects can usually be passed directly to the setup function of multiple drivers).

Usage

The constructor returned by require('envigor') takes an object of environment variables (using process.env by default), then returns a uniform object containing the configuration properties specified by that environment.

Say you're making an Express app with MongoDB, that you're writing for a platform like Heroku, with addons like MongoLab to provide your more general services like MongoDB. By using envigor, you can set your app up to find a configured MongoDB service with complete provider agnosticism:

npm install --save envigor mongodb
heroku addons:add mongolab

server.js:

var http = require('http')
var cfg = require('envigor')();

var app = require('./app.js')(cfg);
http.createServer(app).listen(cfg.port || 5000, function() {
  console.log("Listening on " + port);
});

app.js:

var express = require('express');
module.exports = function(cfg){
  var app = express();

  mongodb.MongoClient.connect(cfg.mongodb.url,function(err,db){
    if(err) throw err; else app.set('db',db)
  }

  // ...your routes here...

  return app;
}

With envigor, the structure of the app server is so common and lightweight that it is provided as a binary with the library named envigorate. Using envigorate, the only scaffolding you need to run an app is, in package.json:

  "main": "app.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "envigorate"
  }

(And you can technically leave out that first line if you use index.js instead of app.js.)

Configuration

In the root index.js, envigor only adds a few properties:

• port, the value of the almost-inescapable PORT variable, used for setting the port for a server to listen on
• ip, the value of the IP variable, used in some environments to specify a specific network interface to listen on
• database, described in detail in the "database" section below
• env, the environment variables used to construct the configuration

Every other object in envigor is set by a script in lib/cfg, with a minimal overview described below (read the files themselves for full details as to the environment variables that can give the corresponding values).

cors

Headers for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. Goes great with ach.

Note that allowOrigin and possibly maxAge are the only CORS configuration parameters that are likely to be deployment-specific, and as such are the only variables you should be setting through the environment / envigor(). While the rest are gathered by envigor, it's mostly for symmetry; they're more likely to be specific to your code, and as such should be ignored / clobbered by static strings when you set up CORS.

cors is also aliased as accessControl.

• allowOrigin
• allowCredentials
• exposeHeaders
• maxAge
• allowMethods
• allowHeaders

email

Adds: smtp, mandrill, postmark, sendgrid, mailgun

smtp

• username, user, auth.user
• password, pass, auth.pass
• hostname, host, server
• port
• service

mandrill

Mandrill by MailChimp

• username
• apiKey, password

postmark

https://postmarkapp.com

• apiKey
• inboundAddress

sendgrid

SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com)

• username
• password

mailgun

Mailgun: Programmable Mail Servers

• apiKey
• smtp
  • username, user, login
  • password, pass
  • hostname, host, server
  • port

mongodb

Services: mongolab, mongohq (aliased as compose.mongodb)

• url, uri

redis

Services: rediscloud, redistogo, myredis, openredis, redisgreen

• url
• hostname
• port
• password
• database

The individual fields will by default be gathered from url using the form redis://database:password@hostname:port if url is defined: if not, url will be constructed from these fields.

You can also set DEFAULT_REDIS to populate redis with all the default values.

memcache

Services: memcachier, memcachedcloud

• servers, as an array split on semicolons and commas in the defined variable. To reconstruct the string, use servers.join(',').
• username
• password

You can also set DEFAULT_MEMCACHE to populate memcache with all the default values.

mysql

Services: cleardb

• url

neo4j

Services: graphenedb, graphstory

• url

rabbitmq

Services: rabbitmqBigwig, cloudamqp

rabbitmq is also aliased as amqp.

• url
• tx.url
• rx.url

rethinkdb

• hostname, host, server
• port
• database, db
• authKey, auth
• table

arangodb

• url

postgresql

• url

Note that, while DATABASE_URL is conventionally used to refer to a PostgreSQL database on Heroku, envigor does not use DATABASE_URL as a fallback name for the PostgreSQL URL. If you wish to have this behavior, add this line after your call to require('envigor')();.

cfg.postgresql = cfg.postgresql || cfg.database;

database

(Per the note in the section introduction, this is added in index.js.)

The "database" hash, if present, contains the content of env.DATABASE_URL in its url field.

Use of "database" / DATABASE_URL is discouraged, and is included primarily for the use of applications with legacy configuration schemas.

Note that, while DATABASE_URL is conventionally used to refer to a PostgreSQL database on Heroku, envigor does not use DATABASE_URL as a fallback name for the PostgreSQL URL. See the section on postgresql.

bitcoin

RPC interfaces for cryptocurrency daemons patterned after bitcoind

Adds: bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin

• hostname, host
• port
• username, user
• password, pass

amazonaws

Amazon Web Services

Adds: aws, s3

aws

• accessKey
• secret

s3

• accessKey, key
• secret
• bucket
• endpoint

facebook

Facebook App configuration

• appId, clientID
• secret, clientSecret

reddit

Reddit App configuration

• username
• password
• appId, clientID, consumerKey, oauth.consumerKey
• secret, clientSecret, consumerSecret, oauth.consumerSecret

twitter

Twitter application OAuth credentials

• key, consumerKey
• secret, consumerSecret

twilio

The Twilio cloud communications platform

• accountSid
• authToken
• number

recaptcha

reCAPTCHA - http://www.google.com/recaptcha

• privateKey
• publicKey

firebase

https://www.firebase.com/

• secret
• url
• appName