docs • user guide • embedding

Embedding into an existing app

It is possible to embed Node-RED into a larger application. A typical scenario would be where you use Node-RED to generate flows of data that you want to display on a web dashboard - all from the same application.

Add node-red to the module dependencies in your application’s package.json, along with any of the individual node dependencies you may have.

The following is a minimal example of embedded the runtime into a wider Express application.

var http = require('http');
var express = require("express");
var RED = require("node-red");

// Create an Express app
var app = express();

// Add a simple route for static content served from 'public'
app.use("/",express.static("public"));

// Create a server
var server = http.createServer(app);

// Create the settings object - see default settings.js file for other options
var settings = {
    httpAdminRoot:"/red",
    httpNodeRoot: "/api",
    userDir:"/home/nol/.nodered/",
    functionGlobalContext: { }    // enables global context
};

// Initialise the runtime with a server and settings
RED.init(server,settings);

// Serve the editor UI from /red
app.use(settings.httpAdminRoot,RED.httpAdmin);

// Serve the http nodes UI from /api
app.use(settings.httpNodeRoot,RED.httpNode);

server.listen(8000);

// Start the runtime
RED.start();

When this approach is used, the settings.js file included with Node-RED is not used. Instead, the settings are passed to the RED.init call as shown above.

Furthermore, the following settings are ignored as they are left to you to configure the Express instance as you want it:

uiHost
uiPort
httpAdminAuth
httpNodeAuth
httpStatic
httpStaticAuth
https

Node-RED: Low-code programming for event-driven applications.

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