node-convict via the convict.load() function to simplify application configurationAugust 16, 2019
node-convict is a wonderful NPM module that lets you declaratively define configuration settings via JSON (or Javascript objects) and where the values for those configuration options should cozme from (environmental variables, command line arguments, etc), as well as add validation and even add documentation for them.
It’s incredibly flexible and I use it in virtually every node project - it’s miles better than parsing process.env manually or even setting hardcoded constants in the app itself.
One of the more interesting uses of convict is to load values from an outside source — for instance, from the AWS Parameter Store. Previously, I’ve used my own custom fork of convict for this, but I was recently made aware that I can make stock convict do this as well, via a call to the load() function. I’m currently rewriting my AWS Parameter Store provider to use native convict functions and will write up a more detailed description of this when its done, but here’s a simple example:
The downside of this method is that it is static and potentially synchronous. That’s fine for all my use cases, though, as I load all my values on application/function start anyway.