Initializers

In addition to setting some basic options in your bridgetown.config.yml configuration file, you can use your site’s config/initializers.rb file to set options, instantiate gem-based plugins, and write initializer blocks to configure third-party gems.

Here’s a sample config/initializers.rb file showcasing many features of the configuration DSL:

Bridgetown.configure do |config|
  init :dotenv

  config.autoload_paths << "jobs"

  init :ssr do
    setup -> site do
      # perform site setup tasks only in the server context
    end
  end
  init :"bridgetown-routes"

  # you can configure site settings here just like you would in bridgetown.config.yml
  permalink "pretty"
  timezone "America/Los_Angeles"

  # some initializers accept additional options
  init :stripe, api_key: ENV["STRIPE_API_KEY"]

  only :server do
    # code which runs only in server context

    init :parse_routes

    # you can also provide initializer options in block DSL form:
    init :mail do
      password ENV["SENDGRID_API_KEY"]
    end
  end

  only :static, :console do
    # code which runs only in static and console contexts
  end

  only :rake do
    # code which runs only in the Rake context
  end

  except :static, :console do
    # you can define hooks witin your initializers file:
    hook :site, :after_init do |site|
      # runs after a site is initialized in server, Rake, etc. contexts, but not static or console
    end
  end
end

Bridgetown.initializer :stripe do |api_key:|
  Bridgetown.logger.info "Stripe:", "Setting the API key"
  Stripe.api_key = api_key
end

Table of Contents #

• Conventions
• Features of the Configuration DSL
  • The init method and initializers
  • Using only, except, and understanding initialization contexts
  • Adding roda blocks
• Low-level Boot Customization
• Built-in Initializers
  • SSR & Dynamic Routes
  • Dotenv
  • Inflector
  • Parse Roda Routes

Conventions #

When calling an initializer, by default Bridgetown will try to require a gem by the same name. This is quite handy if you want to define an initializer specifically to configure a third-party gem. In the example above, we defined an initializer for stripe, so when calling that initializer it requires stripe automatically.

You can disable this behavior in one of two ways:

• You can pass require_gem: false to your initializer. In the example above, if you called init :stripe, require_gem: false, it would not require stripe automatically, and you would have to do so manually within your initializer.
• You can add initializer names to Bridgetown::Configuration::REQUIRE_DENYLIST. For example, by adding Bridgetown::Configuration::REQUIRE_DENYLIST << :stripe at the top of your initializers file, the stripe gem would not be required automatically.

Another convention is that you can put additional files in your config folder each containing an initializer, and then when you call an initializer in your configuration, it will automatically load the relevant file in config before executing. More on that below.

You can disable this behavior by passing require_initializer: false to init—perhaps in a case where you already have a similarly-named file in your config folder which you don’t want to get processed as an initializer.

Features of the Configuration DSL #

The Bridgetown.configure block passes you a config object which is also the exact object that’s the scope of the configure block. This means you can set new configuration options either by calling configuration keys like methods, much like Bridgetown’s Ruby front matter feature— or you can set options on the config object.

set_a_value "Same thing"
config.set_a_value = "Same thing"
# ^ They do the same thing!

Having access to the config object is handy if you want to manipulate existing options:

config.autoload_paths << "models"

Besides setting primary configuration options, you can call init, only, except, roda, and hook. Continue reading for further details.

The init method and initializers #

As seen above, when you call init you can pass additional configuration options requested by the initializer in one of two ways: using a Hash, or using a configure block. Thus these two are equivalent:

init :stripe, api_key: ENV["STRIPE_API_KEY"]

init :stripe do
  api_key ENV["STRIPE_API_KEY"]
end

Inside of the block, you can use the DSL just like in the main configure block. You can also reference keys that were previously set:

init :some_initializer do
  value "Abc123"
  another_value "#{value}456"
end

These configuration values will get passed directly to the initializer. But what if the plugin requires you to set values on the main config instead (as many legacy Bridgetown plugins will)? No problem! While it’s not strictly necessary, you can still use the init block and just reference the main config object from enclosing scope for a clear visual grouping:

init :legacy_plugin do
  config.legacy_plugin_setting = 123
end

If you’re using a legacy plugin—or any third-party Ruby gem without an initializer—you’ll get a message something like:

Initializing: The `insert_gem_name_here' initializer could not be found

No worries! You can write your own initializer. 😎

As in the example at the top of the page, you can place an initializer right alongside the configure block in config/initializers.rb. You can also place a file named the same as the gem or plugin directly in config. In the use case of using the Stripe gem, you could add to config/stripe.rb:

Bridgetown.initializer :stripe do |api_key:|
  Bridgetown.logger.info "Stripe:", "Setting the API key"
  Stripe.api_key = api_key
end

Then when you call init :stripe, api_key: ENV["STRIPE_API_KEY"], code to the effect of require "stripe" will get called automatically and the initializer will get passed the value of api_key.

Some advanced features provided by initializers will be covered in a later section.

Using only, except, and understanding initialization contexts #

There are multiple initialization contexts within the Bridgetown environment. By default, using init or setting configuration options will apply to all possible contexts. But you can limit certain settings by using only and except. Here’s a list of available contexts:

• static: This context is activated only for static builds (aka when running bin/bridgetown build or bin/bridgetown deploy, or during the static build process of bin/bridgetown start).
• server: This context is activated only when running the Roda web server (aka when running bin/bridgetown start).
• console: This context is activated only when running the Bridgetown console via bin/bridgetown console.
• rake: This context is activated when you run a Rake task and it either calls run_initializers or accesses site.

So for example, your configure block could include this:

only :static do
  puts "I get run only for static builds!"
end

except :static do
  puts "I get run for any context other than a static build!"
end

You can pass multiple contexts to only or except:

only :static, :server do
  puts "I get run for both static builds and the server process, but not for the console or Rake tasks."
end

And finally, you can set configuration options that are broadly applicable, but override them in a specific context.

my_val 123

only :server do
  init :parse_routes
  my_val 456
end

puts my_val # => 123 for most contexts, 456 for the server context

Adding roda blocks #

If you wish to configure your site’s Roda server, including setting up Roda plugins, you can add a roda block to your configuration. This provides a convenient alternative to placing configuration in your Roda class directly.

The app argument of a roda block is the class of your Roda application (typically RodaApp) in a Bridgetown project.

roda do |app|
  app.plugin :default_headers,
    'Content-Type'=>'text/html',
    'Strict-Transport-Security'=>'max-age=16070400;',
    'X-Content-Type-Options'=>'nosniff',
    'X-Frame-Options'=>'deny',
    'X-XSS-Protection'=>'1; mode=block'
end

While it’s not strictly required that you place a Roda block inside of an only :server do block, it’s probably a good idea that you do since Roda blocks aren’t used in any other configuration context.

Low-level Boot Customization #

If you need to run Ruby code at the earliest possible moment, essentially right when the bridgetown executable has finished its startup process, you can add a config/boot.rb file to your repo. This is particularly useful if you wish to extend bridgetown with new commands.

# Normally the following is run automatically, so by adding config/boot.rb, you should include
# this Bundler setup:
Bundler.setup(:default, Bridgetown.env)

# Now you can require a gem which adds a command to `bridgetown` via Thor:
require "some_gem_here"

# Or require your own Ruby file:
require_relative "../ruby_code_file.rb"

Read more about defining Thor-based commands here.

Built-in Initializers #

Bridgetown ships with several initializers you can add to your configuration. In future versions of Bridgetown, we expect to make our overall architecture a little more modular so you can use the initializer system to specify just those key features you need (and by omission which ones you don’t!).

SSR & Dynamic Routes #

The SSR features of Bridgetown, along with its companion file-based routing features, are now configurable via initializers.

init :ssr

# optional:
init :"bridgetown-routes"

# …or you can just init the routes, which will init :ssr automatically:

init :"bridgetown-routes"

Check out our Routes documentation here.

Dotenv #

The Dotenv gem provides a simple way to manage environment variables with your Bridgetown project. Simply add the gem to your Gemfile (bundle add dotenv), and then add the initializer to your configuration:

init :dotenv

Now anywhere in your Ruby plugins, templates, etc., you can access environment variables via ENV once you’ve defined your .env file. Our integration also supports specially-named files such as .env.development, .env.test, etc.

Inflector #

Zeitwerk’s inflector can be configured to use ActiveSupport::Inflector. This will become the default in v2.0.

config.inflector = ActiveSupport::Inflector

To add new inflection rules, use the following format.

ActiveSupport::Inflector.inflections(:en) do |inflect|
  inflect.acronym "RESTful"
end

Parse Roda Routes #

Because of how Roda works via its dynamic routing tree, there’s no straightforward way to programmatically list out all the routes in your application.

However, Roda provides a convention which lets you add code comments next to your routing blocks. These comments are then converted to a JSON file containing route information which can then be printed out with a single command.

TBC…

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