Setup

A few steps are required before you can start using Kontrl.

Install the plugin

npm install kontrl

Create an app

1. Log in to kontrl at https://kontrlpanel.com
2. If you haven’t already create an app.
3. Grab your “Development token” from the app settings.

Connect

To connect your application add the following code to your application.

// Require the kontrl library
const kontrl = require("kontrl");

// settings go here

kontrl.connect("YOUR_DEVELOPMENT_TOKEN");

Start your application

Once you’ve followed these steps you can start your application. The Kontrl plugin will then print the url to which you can connect in the console.

Production mode

Once you’re ready to deploy your application you can swap out your development token for your live token.

When you use your live token, Kontrl will assume the application is running in production meaning you can see and manage the running instances on https://kontrlpanel.com.

kontrl.connect("YOUR_LIVE_TOKEN");

When you are in live mode you will not get a url to connect to in the console for obvious security reasons.

Instead you can view your app by logging in to https://kontrlpanel.com and choosing the right app.

Staging mode

The Start-up and Business plans have access to a separate staging environment. This is an environment with a seperate url from the production environment.

To start an app in staging mode, go to your app settings page and copy the staging token.

Then just use it with kontrl.connect()

Kontrl.connect("YOUR_STAGING_TOKEN")

Development mode

There is a special environment for development. To start using the development environment, go to the app settings page and take a development token.

You can then use kontrl.connect()

kontrl.connect("YOUR_DEV_TOKEN")

Once you start your app, a URL will get printed in the console. You can use this url to visit your app in development, as well as send it to other people to look at.

This will not change anything about your production or staging environment.

Security

We suggest adding your development token and your live token as an environment variable.

kontrl.connect(process.env.KONTRL_TOKEN);

You can then use something like dotenv to store your development token.

File structure

We suggest putting your kontrl setup in a different file from the rest of your application.

Here is a suggestion on how to get that done.

// admin.js

const kontrl = require("kontrl");

module.exports = () => {

  // Kontrl setup
  
  kontrl.connect("YOUR_TOKEN");
}

This file can then be imported somewhere else.

// index.js

const admin = require("admin.js")
admin();