Alternative Directory Names

[pi0]

Note

Here are some alternative ideas for the config directory name collected from several places.

See previous efforts and current tools for other relevant dicussions.

.config/ (current proposal)

Config directory indicates it holds the configuration files by their name and is a refactored part of the common .config suffix in current config file names.

It is prefixed with a dot . so that it will be sorted as the first directory and more clearly separated from the rest of the project, reducing more noise. Also is consistent with XDG's ~/.config directory.

.conf/

Before writing this proposal I had been thinking of .conf/ as a shorter alternative. As a drawback, this name is less readable.

.meta/

@barelyreaper suggested in a tweet to use .meta/ since most of the (current) config files have .config in their name and with a more generic place like .meta/ we can put other kinds of dotfiles such as prettierignore in it.

config/

@nainemom @pawamoy suggested using the config directory instead of .config so that it won't be hidden in Unix tools. (#1, #13)

package.json

@jullerino suggested in a tweet to prefer package.json that is also useful for monorepos. @remcohaszing has some interesting points why this might not always work.

[pawamoy]

In one of my projects, years ago, I added support for a .configconfig file which contained a single line with a directory name, in which we would find other config files. I named it .configconfig in reference to .editorconfig... 😂

[adamdehaven]

Have you considered /.configs/ rather than /.config/? (essentially, make it plural)

• The /.config/ directory is already fairly standardized for system-level configurations as well as app-specific write locations on Unix/Linux systems (e.g. ~/.config/ on your Mac).
  • Making it "different enough" can prevent downstream issues, e.g. if some systems restrict access to directories based on the name (looking at you Netlify)
• It holds multiple "configurations," not a single "config"

[phanect]

I'm delayed, but I suggest _configs/ (or _config/ if singular is preferable)

Reasons:

1. Files with a dot prefix in the name: They are treated as hidden files on Linux (and maybe Mac)

.config/ and other directory names starting with a dot are treated as hidden directories on Linux and other Unix(-like) systems (maybe including Mac?), as mentioned in the suggestion for config.

This is one of the reasons why the Vite team didn't accept this .config/ proposal.

vitejs/vite#15911 (comment)

.config/, .conf/, and .meta/ have this problem.
However, _conf/, and _meta/ work as the alternatives.

2. config/ conflicts with some frameworks (especially PHP's)

config/ does not work in some cases because some frameworks use config/ as its configuration directory and the directory name is overlapped.
I have never seen such frameworks using the config/ directory in JS ecosystems, but some PHP frameworks use it. The following PHP frameworks use config/ as their configuration directory.

• Laravel
• Symfony
• CakePHP

If the scope of this proposal is not only JavaScript and TypeScript projects, I think this should be considered.
Even if this proposal only targets JS/TS, it might cause trouble if the developer mixes their PHP and frontend code in the same repository.

3. package.json: causes more conflicts

In addition to remcohaszing's points, I also heard an opinion to avoid writing configs in package.json.

If you write all the configs in package.json in the team projects, it causes a lot of Git conflicts because many people frequently update package.json.