Reorganizing app.js to put related initialization steps together

Question

This is my app.js:

'use strict';
global.config = require('./config/environment/config');
global.i18n = require('./config/locales/config');
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.locals = global.config;
var passport = require('passport');
var session = require('express-session');
var load = require('express-load');
var flash = require('express-flash');
var path = require('path');
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var mongoose = require('mongoose');
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'))
 .set('view engine', global.config.site.html.engine)
 .set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000)
 .set('env', process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development')
 .set('ip', process.env.IP || "0.0.0.0")
app.use(favicon(__dirname + '/assets/favicon.ico'))
 .use(logger('dev'))
 .use(bodyParser.json())
 .use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }))
 .use(flash())
 .use(cookieParser())
 .use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'assets')))
 .use(session({ secret: 'keyboard cat' }))
 .use(passport.initialize())
 .use(passport.session());
var middlewares = require('./middlewares/config')(app);
load('models')
 .then('controllers')
 .then('routes')
 .into(app);
var prototypes = require('./helpers/prototypes');
mongoose.connect('mongodb://' + global.config.db.credentials + '@' + global.config.db.url + '/' + global.config.db.name, function(req, res) {
 console.log('db ok');
});
module.exports = app;

One aspect that annoys me is that I would prefer to have all the require() calls together. However, if I move middlewares and prototypes before app.set(), the code will break. Is there a better way to organize this code?

Answer 1

You can always move the require() call for middlewares up. You're not doing anything with the returned value from calling it on app.

var middlewares = require('./middlewares/config');
app.set(.....)
app.use(.....)
middlewares(app)

I'm assuming prototypes does some hacks with the global namespace. If so, then there's not much you can do about it. That's not really good practice though.