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Configuration

Projects should adhere to the following guidelines for managing configuration:

  1. Configuration values should be provided to programs via environment variables.

  2. Programs should validate configuration immediately when they are run.

  3. If config is incomplete or invalid, programs should:

    1. Exit with a non-zero status
    2. Print a helpful error message to assist humans in resolving the issue

  4. All environment values should be cataloged in a single location.

    • This should generally be a project's .envrc file (values can be left blank as needed), although ecosystems that have a strong convention for this configuration living elsewhere should follow that convention.
    • The purpose of maintaining this catalog of environment variables is to document all possible configuration points.

  5. Projects should define default configuration for local development in an .envrc.local file. This file should be loaded from the project's main .envrc file if it exists. Here is an example.

Following the above guidelines should yield projects with a setup that allows developers to get a new project clone running with minimal manual configuration.