Initializers are the main way you expand your Actionhero server. This is where you connect to databases, modify the global api object with new classes and helper methods, and set up your middleware.

Initializers run in 3 phases coinciding with the lifecycles of the application: initialize, start, and stop. All initialize steps happen before all start steps. Initializers can define both methods and priorities which will happen at each phase of the server's lifecycle. When starting up your Actionhero server, initializers run automatically, with the exception of some CLI commands, which may skip the start step.

System initializers (like setting up redis and the cache) have priority levels in the 100 to 1000 level range. Application initializers should run with a priority level of over 1000 to use methods created by Actionhero, as they might not exist before then. You can of course set priority levels lower than 1000 in your application (perhaps you connect to a database). The priority level split is purely convention.

In general, initialize() methods should create prototypes and new objects, and start() should boot things or connect to external resources.

// initializers/myInitializer.ts

import { Initializer, api, log } from "actionhero";

export class myInitializer extends Initializer {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.name = "myInitializer";
    this.loadPriority = 1000;
    this.startPriority = 1000;
    this.stopPriority = 1000;
  }

  async initialize() {
    api.StuffInit = {
      doAThing: async () => {},
      stopStuff: async () => {},
    };

    log("I initialized", "debug", this.name);
  }

  async start() {
    await api.StuffInit.startStuff();
    log("I started", "debug", this.name);
  }

  async stop() {
    await api.StuffInit.stopStuff();
    log("I stopped", "debug", this.name);
  }
}

To use a custom initializer, create a initializers directory in your project. Export a class that extends actionhero.Initializer and implements at least one of start, stop or initialize and specify your priorities.

You can generate a file of this type with actionhero generate-initializer --name=stuffInit

You can throw an error at any step in the initializer. Doing so will cause Actionhero to log the error and stop the server. For example, you might throw an error if you cannot connect to an external service at boot, like a database.