Defining Settings

To provide configuration for your app, Joystick relies on settings.<env>.json files at the root of your app. You should have one settings.<env>.json file for each environment your app will run in (this environment is denoted by the value of process.env.NODE_ENV).

When you start your app with joystick start via the CLI, this defaults to development. If you deploy your app using Push, this defaults to production.

The following settings files and environments are recommended:

  • settings.development.json - Settings for your local/development environment.
  • settings.staging.json - Settings for your staging environment (a private but internet-accessible version of your app running on hardware similar to your production environment).
  • settings.production.json - Settings for your production environment.
  • settings.test.json Settings for your app used when running joystick test via the Joystick CLI

Non-development environment behavior

While you can use any environment name you wish, keep in mind that Joystick treats any environment name other than development as a production-like environment.

Settings file structure

For all of your supported environment files, the following structure should be utilized. A description of each field's behavior can be found below.

{
  "config": {
    "push": {},
    "databases": [],
    "i18n": {
      "default_language": "en-US"
    },
    "middleware": {},
    "email": {
      "from": "",
      "smtp": {
        "host": "",
        "port": 587,
        "username": "",
        "password": ""
      }
    }
  },
  "global": {},
  "public": {},
  "private": {}
}

API Reference

  • push object

    Contains configuration for your app when deployed with Push. Only required in settings.<env>.json files other than settings.development.json for Push-deployed apps).

  • config object Required

    Contains Joystick-specific settings for your app.

    • databases array[object] Required

      Contains the connection settings for the database you'd like to connect to your app.

      • provider string Required

        The name of the database provider you'd like to add to your app. Should be set to a string containing the "Provider ID" of one of Joystick's supported database providers.

      • options object

        Additional configuration for the specified provider's Node.js driver.

      • connection object

        An object to specify a remote connection for the provider.

        • username string

          A username for the remote connection.

        • password string

          A password for the remote connection.

        • database string

          The name of the database for the remote connection.

        • hosts array[object]

          An array of objects specifying the host(s) for the remote connection.

          • hostname string

            The hostname for the remote database (e.g., us1.mongodbprovider.com).

          • port string/integer

            The port number for the remote database hostname.

    • build object

      Configuration for Joystick's build process.

      • excluded_paths (alias: excludedPaths) array[string]

        An array of strings specifying paths to exclude from the build. Helpful for ignoring directories with files that can be picked up by Joystick's build system (e.g., .js files) that should not be built.

    • middleware object

      Contains overrides for Joystick's built-in middleware.

    • i18n object

      Contains configuration for internationalization (i18n) in your app.

      • default_language (alias: defaultLanguage) string

        Contains a string that's a combination of the ISO-693 language code with the ISO-3166 country code (e.g., en-US, de-DE, es-ES, or ja-JP). This value is utilized if either a user language preference is not set, or, the navigator.language value is not present in the browser.

    • email object

      The email settings for your app. Specifies a third-party SMTP provider (e.g., Postmark, Mailgun, or Sendgrid) to relay email sends through.

      • from string

        The default from address to use if one is not passed to email.send().

      • smtp object

        The SMTP settings for your app. Specifies a third-party SMTP provider (e.g., Postmark, Mailgun, or Sendgrid) to relay email sends through.

        • host string

          The hostname provided by your SMTP provider.

        • port integer

          The port provided by your SMTP provider.

        • username string

          The username provided by your SMTP provider.

        • passsword string

          The password provided by your SMTP provider.

  • global object Required

    Contains global settings for your app. Any settings placed here will be accessible on the both the client (browser) and server.

  • public object

    Contains public settings for your app. Any settings placed here will be accessible on the both the client (browser) and server.

  • private object

    Contains private settings for your app. Any settings placed here will only be accessible on the server.

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