Clarify settings page

[sdavids]

https://pnpm.io/settings

pnpm gets its configuration from the command line, environment variables, pnpm-workspace.yaml, and .npmrc files.

The pnpm config command can be used to read and edit the contents of the project and global configuration files.

Two issues:

1. You should specify in which order the different setting options are applied/overwritten, e.g.

Builtin npmrc - /path/to/npm/npmrc
Global npmrc - ${NPM_CONFIG_GLOBALCONFIG:=$PREFIX/etc/npmrc}
User .npmrc - ${NPM_CONFIG_USERCONFIG:=$HOME/.npmrc}
Global Conf - ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=${HOME}/.config}/pnpm/rc
Project .npmrc - /path/to/my/project/.npmrc
Project Conf /path/to/my/project/pnpm-workspace.yaml
Env
CLI

https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v11/using-npm/config#npmrc-files

What if you use them all, e.g. global config file, env variable, and pnpm-workspace.yaml all contain the same setting but with different values.

2. How do you map a setting to its corresponding environment variable?

https://pnpm.io/settings#node-mirror

node-mirror

https://pnpm.io/settings#executionenvnodeversion

executionEnv.nodeVersion

SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE? SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE with a PNPM prefix?

What do you do with -, ., or :?

node-mirror:release=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node/
executionEnv.nodeVersion=16.16.0

Can certain settings only be set via one option, i.e. only via pnpm-workspace.yaml, only via CLI, or only via env var? — Or can all settings be set via all options?

---

Global configuration file: ~/.config/pnpm/rc (an INI-formatted list of key = value parameters)

Two issues:

1. Is ~/.config/pnpm hard coded? — Or is it ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=${HOME}/.config}/pnpm?

2. What is the format of the keys?

https://pnpm.io/settings#fetchretries

fetchRetries

https://pnpm.io/settings#node-mirror

node-mirror

https://pnpm.io/settings#executionenvnodeversion

executionEnv.nodeVersion

fetchRetries=5
node-mirror:release=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node/
executionEnv.nodeVersion=16.16.0

Are the keys case sensitive? Should they be in SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE? SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE with a PNPM prefix?

[sdavids]

How other tools document this situation:

Spring Boot

https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/reference/features/external-config.html#features.external-config.typesafe-configuration-properties.relaxed-binding.environment-variables

Quarkus

https://quarkus.io/guides/config-reference#environment-variables

---

Alternatively, you could add the env variable to the setting description:

loglevel

Default: info
Type: debug, info, warn, error
Any logs at or higher than the given level will be shown. You can instead pass --silent to turn off all output logs.

⇓

loglevel

Default: info
Type: debug, info, warn, error
Environment Variable: PNPM_LOG_LEVEL
Any logs at or higher than the given level will be shown. You can instead pass --silent to turn off all output logs.