Environment variables

In order to run DemocracyOS, some environment settings are needed. As described in the Environments and config files wiki page, variables are defined in a JSON config file; different settings can be seen in the config/sample.json file, included in the codebase.

Alternatively, settings are obtained from your OS's environment variables.

Note: the following line should be added to the PATH variable: bin:node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

• FAVICON: URL to app's favicon
• HOST: public accessible URL to your app. Used as base for internal URL building.
• LEARN_MORE_URL: if set, an alert will show with this URL as a target for learning more about your deployment.
• LOCALE: application i18n locale. Check here for available language files.
• LOGO: URL to the top-left icon for your deployment
• MANDRILL_APIKEY: your Mandrill API key
• MANDRILL_FROM_EMAIL: registration email sender's name (e.g.: no-reply@democracyos.org)
• MANDRILL_FROM_NAME: registration email sender's name
• MANDRILL_USERNAME: your@email.com
• MONGO_URL: full URL to your MongoDB storage solution
• NODE_ENV: development - name of the running environment. Learn more here
• NODE_PATH: path to the home of the running code. If running node from the project's home dir, then set to .
• ORGANIZATION_NAME: Name of your organization.
• ORGANIZATION_URL: URL to your organization's website.
• PROTOCOL: http/https which base protocol is to be considered when building application URLs. Usually http.
• PUBLIC_PORT: port where the application is listening. If left empty (but defined), it will default to 80.
• RSS_ENABLED: true/false - Whether the /rss route is enabled for notifying new laws being added to the platform.
• STAFF: emails whose users are allowed to acces the administration module. For multiple users, separate emails by comas (e.g.: "peter@server.com,jane@something.org")
• COMMENTS_PER_PAGE: number of arguments (i.e.: comments) per page. 0 means no paging.

The following environment settings are optional:

• SOCIALSHARE_DOMAIN: domain for social network sharing.
• SOCIALSHARE_IMAGE: URL to the social network card thumbnail. 200x200 px recommended.
• SOCIALSHARE_SITE_DESCRIPTION: description for social network card.
• SOCIALSHARE_SITE_NAME: site name for social network card.
• SOCIALSHARE_TWITTER_USERNAME: twitter handle to redirect to when sharing in twitter

Introduced on DemocracyOS v0.7.0, more optional environment settings:

• FAQ_ENABLED: true or false
• TERMS_OF_SERVICE_ENABLED: true or false
• PRIVACY_POLICY_ENABLED: true or false
• GLOSSARY_ENABLED: true or false

These are used to show (or not) a help page on each topic based on faq.md, tos.md and pp.md files located on each help-* component respectively (help-faq, help-tos and help-pp).