sails-env-switch

sails-env-switch provides a NodeJS module to load config based on the SAILS_ENV environment variable. This module makes is easy to switch environment based on SAILS_ENV. This module is to be used in sails to load configurations without having any performance issues, mainly in production (since NODE_ENV is still same). This module takes the default config and return the config based on SAILS_ENV value, if SAILS_ENV is not there it will return the default config.

Installing sail-env-switch

The easiest way to install sails-env-switch is from NPM registry. Switch to your project directory and run the following command. Once installation completes, refer to the usage guidelines or the config/env directory to us it in your project.

npm install sails-env-switch --save

Usage

This module can be used in any sails project. The best way to understand how to use this module is to refer to examples. Examples are located in config/env of this project. We would elaborate few use cases.

A simple use case where SAILS_ENV is set to internal and we have sails app run in production

In this use-case, lets assume you want your sails project is in production and you have to use this project as external and internal service (which will be called by other user facing services) and you need different config for both these scenarios. This module will help you doing this as you need to define SAILS_ENV to internal in one of the environment and that instance will pick only the config defined in internal.js file of config/env of the sails project.

// production.js
modules.exports = require('sails-env-switch').switch({
  port: 80,
  environment: 'production',
  routes: {
    'GET /foo': 'dummyController.get'
    'POST /bar': 'dummyController.post'
  }
});

At this stage you have SAILS_ENV variable is set to internal.

Code for Internal.js

modules.exports = require('sails-env-switch').switch({
  port: 8080,
    environment: 'production',
    routes: {
      'GET /internal/foo': 'dummyController.getFoo'
      'POST /internal/bar': 'dummyController.postBar'
    }
});

Now if you open the sails console and try to get the sails config and other variables.

sails.config.routes

This will give you the values of routes same as in the internal.js

routes: {
  'GET /internal/foo': 'dummyController.getFoo'
  'POST /internal/bar': 'dummyController.postBar'
}

and not the one in the production.js. Even though the NODE_ENV will be same as production.js but the config will be taken from internal.js. This helps segregate the configuration for internal and external facets of the service..

Use of env-lift with this module

If you are using env-lift for your current project, you can easily use this module with env-lift. Check the following example.

// production.js
modules.exports = require('env-lift').load('sample-project-name', require('sails-env-switch').switch({
  port: 80,
  environment: 'production',
  routes: {
    'GET /foo': 'dummyController.get'
    'POST /bar': 'dummyController.post'
  }
}));

At this stage you have SAILS_ENV variable is set to internal.

Code for Internal.js

modules.exports = require('env-lift').load('sample-project-name', require('sails-env-switch').switch({
  port: 8080,
    environment: 'production',
    routes: {
      'GET /internal/foo': 'dummyController.getFoo'
      'POST /internal/bar': 'dummyController.postBar'
    }
}));

The output will be same as described above.

Some important thing

• If SAILS_ENV is not defined, then the config will be picked by the sails as usual.
• If SAILS_ENV is defined to some name, then the same named file should be present in config/env folder of sails, otherwise it will break
• This module is not the alternative for env-lift, this module should be used with env-lift to switch the env config based on SAILS_ENV value.

Contribution

Contribution is accepted in form of Pull Requests that passes Travis CI tests. You should install this repository using npm install -d and run npm test locally before sending Pull Request.