btw look at activator-template-server subproject activator-templates-rest-server, see ActivatorPlugin.scala and ActivatorController.scala for how I like to deal with this app-global state, I think it works well.

https://github.com/typesafehub/activator-template-server/blob/master/templates-rest-server/app/controllers/ActivatorPlugin.scala
https://github.com/typesafehub/activator-template-server/blob/master/templates-rest-server/app/controllers/ActivatorController.scala