The Sails app lifecycle
The Sails core has been iterated upon several times to make it easier to maintain and extend. As a result, it has a very particular loading order, which its hooks depend on heavily. This process is summarized below.
(1) Load Configuration "Overrides"
Gather the set of configuration values passed in on the command line, in environment variables, and in programmatic configuration (i.e. options passed to sails.load or sails.lift.). When an app is started via the command-line interface (i.e. by typing sails lift or sails console), the values of any .sailsrc files will also be merged into the config overrides. These override values will take precedence over any user configuration encountered in the next step.
(2) Load User Configuration
Unless the userconfiguration hook is explicitly disabled, Sails will next load the configuration files in the config folder (and subfolders) underneath the current working directory. See Concepts > Configuration for more details about user configuration. Configuration settings from step 1 will be merged on top of these values to form the sails.config object.
(3) Load Hooks
Next, Sails will load the other hooks. Core hooks will load first, followed by user hooks and installable hooks. Note that hooks typically include configuration of their own which will be used as default values in sails.config. For example, if no port setting is configured by this point, the http hook's default value of 1337 will be used.
(4) Assemble Router
Sails prepares the core Router, then emit multiple events on the sails object informing hooks that they can safely bind routes.
(5) Expose global variables
After all hooks have initialized, Sails exposes global variables (by default: sails object, models, services, _, and async)
(6) Initialize App Runtime
This step does not run when
sails.load()is used programmatically. To also run the initialization step, usesails.lift()instead.
- Run the bootstrap function (
sails.config.bootstrap) - Start attached servers (by default: Express and Socket.io)
FAQ
- What is the difference between
sails.lift()andsails.load()?lift()===load()+initialize(). It does everythingload()does, plus it starts any attached servers (e.g. HTTP) and logs a picture of a boat.
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Reference
- Application
- Blueprint API
- Command Line Interface
-
Configuration
- sails.config.*
- sails.config.blueprints
- sails.config.bootstrap()
- sails.config.connections
- sails.config.cors
- sails.config.csrf
- sails.config.globals
- sails.config.http
- sails.config.i18n
- sails.config.log
- sails.config.models
- sails.config.policies
- sails.config.routes
- sails.config.session
- sails.config.sockets
- sails.config.views
-
Request (`req`)
- req.accepted
- req.acceptedCharsets
- req.acceptedLanguages
- req.body
- req.cookies
- req.fresh
- req.headers
- req.host
- req.ip
- req.ips
- req.isSocket
- req.method
- req.options
- req.originalUrl
- req.params
- req.path
- req.protocol
- req.query
- req.secure
- req.signedCookies
- req.socket
- req.subdomains
- req.url
- req.wantsJSON
- req.xhr
- req.accepts()
- req.acceptsCharset()
- req.acceptsLanguage()
- req.allParams()
- req.file()
- req.get()
- req.is()
- req.param()
- Response (`res`)
- Waterline (ORM)
- WebSockets
Built with Love
The Sails framework is maintained by a web & mobile studio in Austin, TX, with the help of our contributors. We created Sails in 2012 to assist us on Node.js projects. Naturally we open-sourced it. We hope it makes your life a little bit easier!
© 2012-2018 The Sails Company.
The Sails framework is free and open-source under the MIT License.