# Application 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. ## 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(...) 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.