UI Config

Since Didact UI is a build once, deploy anywhere application, its behaviors are modified through a simple configuration file. This configuration file can be thought of as a set of runtime environment variables for Didact UI.

uiconfig.json

To provide important environment variables and app settings for Didact Engine, you need a uiconfig.json file.

This is similar to a .env file that you would find in a standard single page app project. Here, the single page app is wrapped and exposed through a minimal dotnet web api that is able to read a config file.

INFO

This subarchitecture for Didact UI was chosen because normal single page apps can only read environment variables at build time. However, this is intended to be a build once, deploy anywhere application, so I chose to wrap it in a standard server-side app like a dotnet web api so that appsettings and environment variables can be defined post build time through a config file.

uiconfig.json path

The uiconfig.json file must exist in the same root directory as the Didact UI binary/executable. By default, the ui install command and ui config init command from the Didact CLI will autoinstall and autocreate the Didact UI binary/executable and the uiconfig.json file in the same default directory to ensure that the two are next to each other.

DANGER

If you install Didact UI somewhere other than its default install location, then you must ensure that a uiconfig.json file is created in the same directory for Didact UI to read.

uiconfig.json template

A uiconfig.json JSON template file is shown below:

{
    "EngineBaseUrl": "<BASE_URL>"
}

uiconfig.json key matrix

The config keys are shown below in a matrix.

INFO

For simplicity, when referencing these keys through Didact CLI commands, use the exact JSON key reference here such as EngineBaseUrl. It makes the CLI commands slightly ugly, but it avoids unproductive aliasing work on my part for the moment.

JSON and CLI key name	Key value type	Key value description
EngineBaseUrl	string	The base URL for Didact Engine.

EngineBaseUrl

WARNING

Do not include the trailing slash nor any additional paths.