EPA

No, not that EPA... this EPA is a simple way to configure different run time environments using JSON files instead of ENV settings.

How To Use It

1) Install it:

npm install epa

2) Add config files to the root of your project:

mkdir env
mkdir env/development
mkdir env/production

touch env/development/config.json
touch env/production/config.json

3) Require it

var epa = require("epa").getEnvironment();

4) Set the NODE_ENV to the right environment when running your app

NODE_ENV=production node myApp.js

The default is to assume "development" as the environment. If you specify anything other than "development", it will look for that folder / config.json.

5) Use it

In your app, you can reference any value from your config file as a property of the epa object, directly.

{
  "foo": "bar"
}

var epa = require("epa").getEnvironment();
var foo = epa.get("foo");
console.log(epa.foo);

The same works for environment variables. For example, the current "NODE_ENV" environment variable can be retrieved using the same get method:

var epa = require("epa").getEnvironment();
var env = epa.get("NODE_ENV");
console.log(env);

Your Own EPA Instance

The getEnvironment method from the EPA object returns a cached, and default instance of the EPA environment configuration. However, you can create your own instances whenever you want to, using the EPA class that comes with the EPA namespace.

var EPA = require("epa").EPA;

var myEPA = new EPA({
  folder: "my-config",
  systemEnv: process.env,
  environment: "dev"
});

The folder option tells the EPA system what the root folder of your environment configurations is. This parameter is combined with the environment option to find the correct config.json file.

The systemEnv option tells the EPA system what "system" environment variables to use. You should specify process.env unless you have a good reason not to.

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Copyright © 2014 Muted Solutions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Distributed under the MIT license.