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Cordon needs to be running before your application starts making API calls. Here are several ways to manage the proxy lifecycle.

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Procfile (foreman / overmind)

The simplest approach for development. Use cordon wait to block until the proxy is ready: 
proxy: cordon start --config cordon.yaml
web: cordon wait && npm run dev
cordon wait polls the health endpoint until it returns 200, then exits. Your application starts only after credentials are loaded and the proxy is accepting connections.

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Background service

Install cordon as an OS-managed service that starts automatically: 
cordon service install --config /path/to/cordon.yaml
The service is installed as a launchd user agent. It starts on login and restarts on failure.
# Install
cordon service install --config /path/to/cordon.yaml

# Check status
cordon status

# Uninstall
cordon service uninstall

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Named instances

Run multiple cordon instances with different configs: 
cordon service install --name api-proxy --config ~/configs/api-cordon.yaml
cordon service install --name db-proxy --config ~/configs/db-cordon.yaml

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Health endpoint

The health endpoint is available at GET /health as soon as the proxy process starts:
StatusResponseMeaning
200{"status":"ok"}Proxy is ready — secrets loaded, accepting connections
503{"status":"starting"}Proxy is starting — secrets not yet loaded
The health endpoint serves 503 immediately at process start (before secrets load). This is intentional — process supervisors can distinguish between “starting” (503) and “not running” (connection refused).

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Startup sequence

The proxy starts in a strict order:
  1. Parse and validate cordon.yaml. Exit on invalid config.
  2. Start health endpoint (serves 503 {"status":"starting"}).
  3. Resolve all secrets from configured sources. Exit if any fail.
  4. If TLS enabled: generate or load CA keypair.
  5. Bind listener on configured address.
  6. Mark health endpoint ready (200 {"status":"ok"}).
  7. Begin accepting connections.