HOWTO for gitter-env

README.md

@@ -8,3 +8,79 @@ Deploying your node app? Use this to:
 3. publish errors that wake people up in the night
 4. publish stats that help make decisions
 5. use different env configs so that you app can travel to new environments
+
+
+## Using gitter-env
+
+Firstly you need to create a singleton instance inside your application. Call the module something like env. 
+It will need to reference the location of the configuration files, like this:
+
+```
+var gitterEnv = require('gitter-env');
+var path = require('path');
+
+/* Create a singleton environment */
+module.exports = gitterEnv.create(path.join(__dirname, '..', '..', 'config'));
+
+```
+
+Once you've got your `env` instance, here are some things you can do with it
+
+## Logging
+
+`env.logger` looks a lot like [winston](https://github.com/flatiron/winston). Use it for logging:
+
+* `logger.verbose(message, meta)`
+* `logger.info(message, meta)`
+* `logger.warn(message, meta)`
+* `logger.error(message, meta)`
+
+## Configuration
+
+`env.conf` looks a lot like [nconf](https://github.com/flatiron/nconf). Use it for configuration:
+
+* `conf.get('some:variable')`
+
+## Error Reporter
+
+`env.errorReporter` will send your errors to sentry. Use it for logging serious problems:
+
+* `errorReporter(err, { some: 'meta', information: 1 })`
+
+## Redis Client
+
+`env.redis` will provide you with a singleton instance of a redis client or a new instance. It will use Redis Sentinel it it's configured.
+
+* `env.redis.getClient()` - returns the main singleton Redis client.
+* `env.redis.createClient()` - returns a new Redis client.
+* `env.redis.quitClient()` - closes a Redis client (don't do this with the main singleton client)
+
+## Statistics
+
+`env.stats` will send statistics to Datadog, Cube, Mixpanel and other places.
+
+* `env.stats.event('name')` - increment a counter
+* `env.stats.eventHF('name', [count], [frequency])` - increment a high frequency counter
+* `env.stats.gaugeHF('name', [value], [frequency])` - update a high frequency gauge
+* `env.stats.responseTime('name', duration)` - track a response time
+
+## Error Handling
+
+* `env.installUncaughtExceptionHandler` - will install a graceful shutdown handler on uncaught exceptions
+* `env.domainWrap(function() { /* server */ });` - will do the same inside the function
+
+
+## Middlewares
+
+* `env.middlewares.errorHandler` - a basic error handling middleware
+* `env.middlewares.accessLogger` - access logging with response time stats
+
+
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