setnodeenv.md

Set NODE_ENV = production

One Paragraph Explainer

Process environment variables is a set of key-value pairs made available to any running program, usually for configuration purposes. Though any variables can be used, Node encourages the convention of using a variable called NODE_ENV to flag whether we’re in production right now. This determination allows components to provide better diagnostics during development , for example by disabling caching or emitting verbose log statements. Any modern deployment tool – Chef, Puppet, CloudFormation, others – support setting environment variables during deployment

Code example: Setting and reading the NODE_ENV environment variable

//Using a command line, initializing node process and setting before environment variables
Set NODE_ENV=development&& set otherVariable=someValue&& node
 
//Reading the environment variable using code
If(process.env.NODE_ENV === “production”)
    useCaching = true;

What Other Bloggers Say

From the blog dynatrace:

...In Node.js there is a convention to use a variable called NODE_ENV to set the current mode. We see that it in fact reads NODE_ENV and defaults to ‘development’ if it isn’t set. We clearly see that by setting NODE_ENV to production the number of requests Node.js can handle jumps by around two-thirds while the CPU usage even drops slightly. Let me emphasize this: Setting NODE_ENV to production makes your application 3 times faster!