Configuration

Introduction

Manifest embraces the convention over configuration concept: it assumes several logical situations by default without showing you the setting to keep things as simple as possible.

Nevertheless there is still the possibility to adapt your Manifest app to your needs, especially through the .env file. Here is the list of available environment variables:

General variables

General environment variables.

Variable	Default	Description
NODE_ENV	development	The app environment. For production and staging instances, it should be set to production, mostly to turn off live reload on file change.
PORT	1111	The port of your app. You can either adapt your server settings to listen to 1111 or change here to your server's default (usually 3000)
BASE_URL	http://localhost:$PORT	The base url of your backend. Change it when deploying if you use file or image upload
OPEN_API_DOCS	true unless NODE_ENV=production	Determines whether the OpenAPI doc is shown (formerly Swagger) for your REST API at /api. Make sure to set to true if you want to display on production

Paths

Environment variables related to paths.

Variable	Default	Description
PUBLIC_FOLDER	/public	The public folder to show static files
MANIFEST_HANDLERS_FOLDER	/manifest/handlers	The folder to put your handlers functions for custom endpoints
MANIFEST_FILE_PATH	/manifest/backend.yml	The relative or absolute path of your Manifest YAML file
TOKEN_SECRET_KEY	-	The secret key behind the JWT authentication. Required on production, you can generate one here.

Database

By default Manifest runs with SQLite to enable instant launch with the npx add-manifest@latest command.

We recommend switching to PostgreSQL or MySQL or its alternative MariaDB on production for more robustness and to choose from a large number of managed database providers.

Variable	Default	Description	Applies To
DB_CONNECTION	sqlite	Choose postgres switching to PostgreSQL or mysql for MySQL or MariaDB	All
DB_PATH	/manifest/backend.db	Path of the database. Your server should have access to this path locally	SQLite
DB_HOST	localhost	Database host	PostgreSQL / MySQL
DB_PORT	5432	Database port	PostgreSQL / MySQL
DB_USERNAME	postgres	Database username	PostgreSQL / MySQL
DB_PASSWORD	postgres	Database password	PostgreSQL / MySQL
DB_DATABASE	manifest	Database name	PostgreSQL / MySQL
DB_SSL	false	Require SSL for DB connection. Set to true if using remote DB.	PostgreSQL / MySQL

Example configurations

Here are examples of .env files for different database connections:

SQLite

 DB_CONNECTION=sqlite

 DB_PATH=/manifest/backend.db

PostgreSQL

 DB_CONNECTION=postgres

 DB_HOST=my-host.com
 DB_USERNAME=owner
 DB_PASSWORD=xxxxx
 DB_DATABASE=my_app
 DB_SSL=true # Required for remote managed DBs, remove if local

MySQL / MariaDB

DB_CONNECTION=mysql

DB_USERNAME=xxxxx
DB_PASSWORD=xxxxx
DB_HOST=my-host.com
DB_PORT=25060
DB_DATABASE=my_app
DB_SSL=true # Required for remote managed DBs, remove if local