Today I finally landed a large refactoring branch I'd been working on all week.

For a while, a few things have been bugging us:

• TorqueBox supported a crapload of config/*.yml files
• Every app required Rails, or at least Rack.

While it's not complete, we've taken a major step today. For the most part, we've maintained backward compatibility, and issue deprecation warnings in the server.log.

config/torquebox.yml replaces config/*.yml

The various files that TorqueBox supports within config/, such as web.yml, jobs.yml and messaging.yml are now all deprecated.

Instead, the configuration represented by each file is now contained within a top-level section of the torquebox.yml.

For instance, if your config/web.yml had this:

host: mycoolapp.com

You would now have config/torquebox.yml with contents such as:

web:
  host: mycoolapp.com

You'll notice that torquebox.yml looks like *-rails.yml, which brings us to our next point.

*-knob.yml replaces *-rails.yml/*-rack.yml

First, we removed the need to explicitly name the framework in the deployment descriptor's filename. Also, by choosing -knob as a framework-agnostic extension, we open the door for applications that lack any web component.

Now, instead of placing myapp-rails.yml or myapp-rack.yml into the deploy/ directory, you simply name it myapp-knob.yml.

Both *-knob.yml and torquebox.yml may now contain the same sections. You may externally override any config/torquebox.yml section using a section of the same name in the externally deployed *-knob.yml.

At this point, only entire sections are replaced/overridden.

The final precedence, from most to least, is:

1. External myapp-knob.yml
2. Internal config/torquebox.yml
3. Internal config/SOMETHING.yml

Note: rackup parameter has moved

The application: section of an external descriptor previously took a rackup: configuration parameter, optionally providing a path to a non-default config.ru.

This configuration parameter has moved to the web: section, where it is more appropriate.

.knob archives replace .rails/.rack archives

Just as external YAML descriptors no longer need to encode rack or rails into their filenames, neither do archive-based deployments.

Instead, archives should be named with the extension of .knob.

Backwards compatibility

For now, development builds will continue to support *-rails.yml and *-rack.yml external descriptors, along with *.rails and *.rack archives. Expect to see this support removed before the final 1.0 release.

Why oh why?

The reasons for these changes are several-fold:

• Simplification of internal code (fewer rails/rack-specific code-paths)
• Simplification of deployment (-knob.yml and .knob is all you need)
• Simplification of configuration (only torquebox.yml, not a swarm of YAML files)
• Moving from being web-centric to component-centric