When you create an Express application, you have some buried treasure in the application git repsository that is created. If you look under the .openshift directory, you will see the following:

[18](ironmaiden:seamrocks) > ls -lR .openshift/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 starksm  wheel  102 Aug 11 11:41 action_hooks
drwxr-xr-x  3 starksm  wheel  102 Aug 11 11:41 config
drwxr-xr-x  3 starksm  wheel  102 Aug 11 11:41 markers


.openshift//action_hooks:
total 8
-rwxr-xr-x  1 starksm  wheel  187 Aug 11 11:41 build


.openshift//config:
total 24
-rw-r--r--  1 starksm  wheel  9488 Aug 11 11:41 standalone.xml


.openshift//markers:
total 8
-rw-r--r--  1 starksm  wheel  422 Aug 11 11:41 README

• .openshift/action_hooks/build
  • This is a script that is run after the deployment has been built, but before the server has been restarted.
• .openshift/config/standalone.xml
  • This is the standalone.xml that will be run by the jbossas7 server instance associated with your application. You can change things like logging levels and other basic settings, but don't go wild because the server runs under restrictions.
• .openshift/markers

  • Adding marker files to this directory will have the following effects:

    • skip_maven_build - Maven build step will be skipped

    • skip_maven_build_keep - Maven build step will be skipped and the previous output in deployments (excluding what is git pushed) will be left intact from the previous build.  Applies as long as skip_maven_build_keep is present plus one git push after it is removed.

In the future we will be looking to expose additional functionality like being able to extend the modules used by the server.