koa-lite/docs/api/index.md

# Application

  A Koa application is an object containing an array of middleware generator functions
  which are composed and executed in a stack-like manner upon request. Koa is similar to many
  other middleware systems that you may have encountered such as Ruby's Rack, Connect, and so on -
  however a key design decision was made to provide high level "sugar" at the otherwise low-level
  middleware layer. This improves interoperability, robustness, and makes writing middleware much
  more enjoyable.

  This includes methods for common tasks like content-negotation, cache freshness, proxy support, and redirection
  among others. Despite supplying a reasonably large number of helpful methods Koa maintains a small footprint, as
  no middleware are bundled.

  The obligatory hello world application:

```js
var koa = require('koa');
var app = koa();

app.use(function *(){
  this.body = 'Hello World';
});

app.listen(3000);
```

## Settings

  Application settings are properties on the `app` instance, currently
  the following are supported:

  - `app.name` optionally give your application a name
  - `app.env` defaulting to the __NODE_ENV__ or "development"
  - `app.proxy` when true proxy header fields will be trusted
  - `app.subdomainOffset` offset of `.subdomains` to ignore [2]
  - `app.jsonSpaces` default JSON response spaces [2]
  - `app.outputErrors` output err.stack to stderr [false in "test" environment]

## app.listen(...)

  A Koa application is not a 1-to-1 representation of an HTTP server,
  as one or more Koa applications may be mounted together to form larger
  applications, with a single HTTP server.

  Create and return an HTTP server, passing the given arguments to
  `Server#listen()`. These arguments are documented on [nodejs.org](http://nodejs.org/api/http.html#http_server_listen_port_hostname_backlog_callback). The following is a useless Koa application bound to port `3000`:

```js
var koa = require('koa');
var app = koa();
app.listen(3000);
```

  The `app.listen(...)` method is simply sugar for the following:

```js
var http = require('http');
var koa = require('koa');
var app = koa();
http.createServer(app.callback()).listen(3000);
```

  This means you can spin up the same application as both HTTP and HTTPS,
  or on multiple addresses:

```js
var http = require('http');
var koa = require('koa');
var app = koa();
http.createServer(app.callback()).listen(3000);
http.createServer(app.callback()).listen(3001);
```

## app.callback()

  Return a callback function suitable for the `http.createServer()`
  method to handle a request.
  You may also use this callback function to mount your koa app in a
  Connect/Express app.

## app.use(function)

  Add the given middleware function to this application. See [Middleware](#middleware) for
  more information.

## app.keys=

 Set signed cookie keys.

 These are passed to [KeyGrip](https://github.com/jed/keygrip),
 however you may also pass your own `KeyGrip` instance. For
 example the following are acceptable:

```js
app.keys = ['im a newer secret', 'i like turtle'];
app.keys = new KeyGrip(['im a newer secret', 'i like turtle'], 'sha256');
```

  These keys may be rotated and are used when signing cookies
  with the `{ signed: true }` option:

```js
this.cookies.set('name', 'tobi', { signed: true });
```

## Error Handling

  By default outputs all errors to stderr unless __NODE_ENV__ is "test". To perform custom error-handling logic such as centralized logging you
  can add an "error" event listener:

```js
app.on('error', function(err){
  log.error('server error', err);
});
```

  If an error in the req/res cycle and it is _not_ possible to respond to the client, the `Context` instance is also passed:

```js
app.on('error', function(err, ctx){
  log.error('server error', err, ctx);
});
```

  When an error occurs _and_ it is still possible to respond to the client, aka no data has been written to the socket, Koa will respond
  appropriately with a 500 "Internal Server Error". In either case
  an app-level "error" is emitted for logging purposes.