Edit Page

sails.config.bootstrap

What is this?

sails.config.bootstrap is a customizable, asynchronous bootstrap function that runs before your Sails app gets lifted (i.e. starts up).

The bootstrap can be used for all sorts of stuff, but here are a few particularly common use cases:

setting up baseline data
- e.g. find or create an admin user
running sanity checks on the status of your database
- e.g. count hand records that don't have any fingers. If any are found, then refuse to lift until the database is fixed)
seeding your database with stub data
- e.g. create & associate a few fake "Clinic", "Pet", and "Veterinarian" records to make it easier to test your animal adoption app)

Example

Remember: Since the bootstrap is an asynchronous function, it's very important to trigger this callback method when you are finished! (otherwise your server will never lift, and eventually just time out, since it's waiting on the bootstrap)

module.exports.bootstrap = function (done) {

  // Don't seed fake data when running in production.
  if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production') {
    return done();
  }

  //--•
  // Check to see if we already have a fake clinic in the database.
  Clinic.count({
    slug: 'lost-snakes'
  }).exec(function (err, existingFakeClinics) {
    if (err) { return done(err); }

    if (existingFakeClinics >= 2) {
      return done(new Error('Consistency violation: Database is in invalid state: There should never be more than one fake clinic!'));
    }

    if (existingFakeClinics === 1) {
      // If the clinic already exists, then we're done.
      // That means we must have already run the bootstrap and seeded the fake data.
      return done();
    }

    // --•
    // But otherwise, we'll seed some fake data.
    Clinic.create({
      friendlyName: 'Lost Snakes Clinic',
      slug: 'lost-snakes',
      address: '158 Lost Snakes Blvd\nAustin, TX  78759'
    }).exec(function (err){
      if (err) { return done(err); }

      // ...etc...
      return done();

    });//</Clinic.create()>
  });//</Clinic.count()>

};

Is something missing?

If you notice something we've missed or could be improved on, please follow this link and submit a pull request to the sails-docs repo. Once we merge it, the changes will be reflected on the website the next time it is deployed.

Documentation

Reference

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!