pwix:env-settings

Preliminary notes

This package is a fork from 4commerce:env-settings v 1.2.0:

• because this original package does exactly what it says, and does it well
• unfortunately, it seems no more maintained
• fortunatly, I was been able to fix the issue I encountered
• so this package ;)

Installation

    meteor add pwix:env-settings

Provides

On client side, the package sets the Meteor.settings.public object to the public configuration read from (server-side) private/config/public folder, and adds a runtime: { env: <env> } to it, giving something like:

    {
        public: {                                                             <- the `public` leaf of the server tree
            comments: [                                                       ^
                'General env-settings package configuration',                 |
                'see https://atmospherejs.com/pwix/env-settings'              |
            ],                                                                | the merged content of all yaml/json files found under `private/config/public` folder.
            persistent_session: { default_method: 'persistent' },             |
            myConfig: {                                                       |
                a_key: [Object],                                              |
                version: '23.05.17.4'                                         |
            },                                                                v
            runtime: { env: 'dev:0' }                                         <- dynamically added by the package
        }
    }

On server side, the package sets the same Meteor.settings.public object than on the client side, and adds to Meteor.settings the full merged content of the private/config/server folder, giving something like:

    {
        public: {
            comments: [
                'General env-settings package configuration',
                'see https://atmospherejs.com/pwix/env-settings'
            ],
            persistent_session: { default_method: 'persistent' },
            myConfig: {
                a_key: [Object],
                version: '23.05.17.4'
            },
            runtime: { env: 'dev:0' }
          },
          myServerConfig: {
              ...
          },
          runtime: {
              env: 'dev:0',
              serverDir: '/home/pierre/data/eclipse/iziam/.meteor/local/build/programs/server'
          }
    }

Global object

EnvSettings

Methods

• EnvSettings.configure()

  The configuration method. See below.

• EnvSettings.ready()

  A reactive getter/setter method which get/set the readyness status of the package.

  The package is considered ready when all configuration files have been loaded.

Configuration

The package's behavior can be configured through a call to the EnvSettings.configure() method, with just a single javascript object argument, which itself should only contains the options you want override.

Known configuration options are:

• onReady

  An optional function to be executed on the server-side when both the package has been configured and the EnvSettings.ready() reactive function has become true:

  • either after the configuration assets have been loaded if the package is configured to wait for startup
  • or immediately (at configuration time) if the configuration assets have already been loaded.

  The function is called without argument, and we you should not expect anything of its return value.

• verbosity

  A OR-ed value which describes the verbosity level requested by the application.

  Accepted values are:

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.NONE

    No verbose at all.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.CONFIGURE

    Trace calls to EnvSettings.configure() and their result.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.READY

    Emit a message when the package is ready.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.STARTUP_MARK

    Emit a message when the package runs Meteor.startup().

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.STARTUP_DUMP

    Dump EnvSettings object at Meteor.startup().

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.SERVERDIR

    Trace the server directory where settings are read from.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.CONFIGPATH

    Trace the private configuration directory.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.LOADFILE

    Trace each individual filename at the time it is loaded.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.SERVERCONF

    Trace the loading of config/server settings.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.PUBLICCONF

    Trace the loading of config/public settings.

  • EnvSettings.C.Verbose.ATOMICCONF

    Trace the content of each individual file at the time it is loaded.

Also note, as an explicit reminder, that, because the Meteor packages are instanciated at application level, they can have only one configuration. In order to prevent any risk of collision, the configuration of the package should be reserved to the application itself. In other words, other packages, even if they take advantage of this one, should not try to call themselves the EnvSettings.configure() method.

You have been warned: only the application should configure the package.

Environment management

While nodejs defines only three environments (development, staging and production), and though Meteor has followed the same route, we strongly believe that many more would be better, and that we should not be tied to such only three parts.

We so use the APP_ENV environment variable to address our own environment identifier. Through this identifier, we ask the server to publish the setings recorded inside of its private settings.

The settings are read from the server settings for this environment through the path Meteor.settings[APP.name].environments[<environment_identifier>].

If not specified in the APP_ENV variable, the environment identifier falls back to the nodejs NODE_ENV environment name.

When configuration assets are they loaded ?

Historically, configuration assets were loaded at Meteor.startup() time.

Starting with v2.0.0, configuration assets are loaded at package initialization time, i.e. very early in the startup process.

This behavior is hard-coded, and controlled through the EnvSettings.C.WaitForStartup constant.

Issues & help

In case of support or error, please report your issue request to our Issues tracker.

NPM peer dependencies

As of v 1.5.0, underscore and meteorblackbelt:underscore-deep dependencies are replaced with lodash.

Starting with v 1.4.0, and in accordance with advices from the Meteor Guide, we no more hardcode NPM dependencies in the Npm.depends clause of the package.js.

Instead we check npm versions of installed packages at runtime, on server startup, in development environment.

Dependencies as of v 2.0.0:

    'lodash': '^4.17.21',
    'js-yaml': '^4.1.0'

Each of these dependencies should be installed at application level:

    meteor npm install <package> --save

Original documentation

The rest of this documentation is originally from 4commerce. See also the Github original repository.

It may have been fixed for some typos.

P. Wieser

• Last updated on 2024, Jun. 2nd

---

This meteorjs package allows you to organize your settings inside your private assets directory. The configuration files will be autoloaded during startup based on the active environment.

Now you can easily switch between settings just by changing the NODE_ENV variable.

The package also allows to specify different configuration files for server and public settings.

Last but not least you can divide your configuration files into partials and get them merged and overloaded during startup. You can define defaults and redefine only a few afterwards based on the active environment (see samples below).

The config files may be written (also mixed) in YAML and JSON notation.

Installation

You can add this package to your meteor app like any other package from atmosphere

$ meteor add 4commerce:env-settings

Directory structure

All configuration files must be placed in

private/config

There is the option to create sub-directories for all environments to load a set of configuration files for server and public

Defaults

private/config/public/
private/config/server/

Per environment

private/config/development/public/
private/config/development/server/

private/config/production/public/
private/config/production/server/

You may name your environments as you like but I advise you to stay with the standards like development, production and testing.

Single file configurations

If you do not want to create partials for your configuration files, you also may use (also mixable) the single file naming:

private/config/public.yaml
private/config/server.yaml

private/config/production/public.yaml
private/config/production/server.yaml

File extensions

The loader will only take care of following files, all others are skipped:

*.json
*.yaml
*.yml

Loading order

Below you see the complete pattern matching and also the loading order. Config files are loaded and merged from inner to outer sub-directories. Beware of this when deciding your overloads.

private/config/public.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/public/*.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/environment/public.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/environment/public/*.(json|yaml|yml)

private/config/server.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/server/*.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/environment/server.(json|yaml|yml)
private/config/environment/server/*.(json|yaml|yml)

Also the file extensions will touch the ordering and you will overload file.json with file.yaml with file.yml. But, I would advise you to use just one type for each file.

Meteor.settings

The configuration files are loaded during Meteor.startup() which is included in the package.

If you place this package somewhere on top of your used packages, you be able to access your settings on a early stage.

After autoload of your configuration files you may access the settings through the standard Meteor.settings and Meteor.settings.public object. Your Meteor.settings.public values are also available on your client app.

Try console.log(Meteor.settings); on both client and server and get what has distributed.

Read more at meteor documentation

Meteor.settings.(public).runtime

In addition we append a few useful properties about the runtime environment automatically during the loading process.

Server only:

console.log(Meteor.settings.runtime.env); => "development"

console.log(Meteor.settings.runtime.serverDir); => absolute file path to your meteor server bundle path

Public both:

console.log(Meteor.settings.public.runtime.env); => "development"

Grammar

Your config files may notated in JSON and YAML grammar (see links to Wikipedia).

Example public.yaml:

application:
  name: "My super application"
  version: "1.0"

images:
  upload: "upload-folder"
  max_size: 10
  auto_shrink: true

Example public.json:

{
  "application": {
    "name": "My super application",
    "version": "1.0"
  },

  "images": {
    "upload": "upload-folder",
    "max_size": 10,
    "auto_shrink": true
  }
}

I prefer to use YAML in case of it's easy notation and leveling.

For parsing YAML and JSON we are using js-yaml and getting file content via it's safeLoad method. Please be aware that this is defined as loading untrusted data and therefore some features are not enabled. Currently I can't see any loss on that.

You may check your YAML code on their online editor at: http://nodeca.github.io/js-yaml/

Loading, overloading and merge

After each config file is loaded, parsed and instatiated, we extend that object to the already existing configuration. For that process we are using _.deepExtend which do not replace sub-elements but merge or overload them.

For overloading you have to take care about the file loading order which is described at section Directory Structure.

Here is a small example.

config/public.yaml

caches:
  enabled: false
  tmp_path: /tmp

config/production/public.yaml

caches:
  enabled: true

config/testing/public.yaml

caches:
  tmp_path: /dev/null

This will result in always Meteor.settings.public.caches.enabled == false except when your environment is production.

The value of Meteor.settings.public.caches.tmp_path gets overwritten on the testing environment only

Partials

If you want to structure your configuration in partials you can use folders to place them to right configuration context.

config/public/caches.yaml

caches:
  enabled: false
  tmp_path: /tmp

config/public/mail.yaml

smtp:
  server: mail.local

config/production/public/caches.yaml

caches:
  enabled: true

config/testing/public/mail.yaml

smtp:
  server: mail.trash

Be aware that the rules of overloading and file ordering is still the same.

Attention: It is not necessary for the loader that the partials have the same filename at all environments – but, I advise you to name them equal for clearness.

Meteor option --settings and METEOR_SETTINGS

In case that we merge and overload the content of your config files to the Meteor.settings object, you still can initialize it with the standard options.

Set mission critical / security values

As said in previous paragraph, you still can load some values to your settings via the METEOR_SETTINGS env var. So within that you can place your login credentials like Amazon S3 keys etc. without committing them to your repos. All other app settings getting merged by this package.

Template.helpers

From release 1.2.0 we dropped the dependencies to our helper packages. If you want to get easy access to your public settings while working on your templates, we advise you to install one or both of our template helpers for that.

meteor-namespace-template-helper

See package 4commerce:meteor-namespace-template-helper. This package brings the Meteor namespace (Meteor.user, Meteor.settings.public etc.) directly to templates.

Example:

<template name="about">
  <span>{{Meteor.settings.public.application.version}}</span>
</template>

Read more at the package's homepage on GitHub.

pubsettings-template-helper

See package 4commerce:pubsettings-template-helper. This package gain access to Meteor.settings.public within your templates by a ShortCut function.

Example:

<template name="about">
  <span>{{pubSettings.application.version}}</span>
</template>

Read more at the package's homepage on GitHub.

Changes to Meteor.settings

The object properties of Meteor.settings are always writeable. We highly advise you not to make changes to your settings inside your server or your client app. If you have to and can not realize your requests within the configuration files, you should make latest changes while inside main startup code. The setting values are not reactive and changes are not (re-)synced between client and server.

A public element in your config files

The loading process will automatically merge the public settings at the Meteor.settings.public element. Therefore and to make sure that you have not made a typing error, we denied the occurence of a public element at root level inside your public and server configurations (only at root level). This should avoid (miss-typed) structures like Meteor.settings.public.public. In such a case an error is thrown with the identification of the false file.

Package dependencies

When you add this package, following dependencies will load:

1. udondan:yml

Related packages

When you add this package, following may be useful to add:

1. 4commerce:meteor-namespace-template-helper
2. 4commerce:pubsettings-template-helper

Issues & help

In case of support or error please report your issue request. The issue tracker is available at: https://github.com/4commerce-technologies-AG/meteor-package-env-settings/issues

Author & Credits

Author: Tom Freudenberg, 4commerce technologies AG

Copyright (c) 2015 Tom Freudenberg, 4commerce technologies AG, released under the MIT license