Configuration management

Configuration Management

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Comprehensive guide to managing application configuration across environments, including environment variables, configuration files, secrets, feature flags, and following 12-factor app methodology.

When to Use

• Setting up configuration for different environments
• Managing secrets and credentials
• Implementing feature flags
• Creating configuration hierarchies
• Following 12-factor app principles
• Migrating configuration to cloud services
• Implementing dynamic configuration
• Managing multi-tenant configurations

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

# .env.development
NODE_ENV=development
PORT=3000
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost:5432/myapp_dev
REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379
LOG_LEVEL=debug
API_KEY=dev-api-key-12345

# .env.production
NODE_ENV=production
PORT=8080
DATABASE_URL=${DATABASE_URL}  # From environment
REDIS_URL=${REDIS_URL}
LOG_LEVEL=info
API_KEY=${API_KEY}  # From secret manager

# .env.test
NODE_ENV=test
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost:5432/myapp_test
LOG_LEVEL=error

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Environment Variables	Environment Variables
Configuration Hierarchies	Configuration Hierarchies
Secret Management	Secret Management
Feature Flags	Feature Flags
12-Factor App Configuration	12-Factor App Configuration
Configuration Validation	Configuration Validation
Dynamic Configuration (Remote Config)	Dynamic Configuration (Remote Config)

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Store configuration in environment variables
• Use different config files per environment
• Validate configuration on startup
• Use secret managers for sensitive data
• Never commit secrets to version control
• Provide sensible defaults
• Document all configuration options
• Use type-safe configuration objects
• Implement configuration hierarchy (base + overrides)
• Use feature flags for gradual rollouts
• Follow 12-factor app principles
• Implement graceful degradation for missing config
• Cache secrets to reduce API calls

❌ DON'T

• Hardcode configuration in source code
• Commit .env files with real secrets
• Use different config formats across services
• Store secrets in plain text
• Expose configuration through APIs
• Use production credentials in development
• Ignore configuration validation errors
• Access process.env directly everywhere
• Store configuration in databases (circular dependency)
• Mix configuration with business logic