Running multiple node applications using same configuration file that is outside of each project

I am using pm2 to run several node applications. Problem is that I am using config files for every node application and so what I want to do is easily have say a json file outside of all the node application folders in which they can ALL point all for common database connections etc...

1. Prefer to not use linux environment variables unless there is an easy and great way of setting it up
2. pm2 does have the ecosystem, but it doesn't seem to be very well documented to me

3. what other solutions?

   pm2 ecosystem  // this generates .config.js   not a .json   
   
   

via Jeremy Miller