Skip to content

config dump omits per-file overlays and inherited default-component-config #264

Description

@liunan-ms

Summary

azldev config dump presents itself as showing the "fully resolved project configuration", but it stops at the file-level merge and does not run the per-component resolver. As a result, two important sources of effective configuration are invisible in the dump even though builds honor them:

  1. overlay-files expansion — overlays loaded from overlays/*.overlay.toml (per-file overlay format, docs) never appear in components.<name>.overlays.
  2. Inherited default-component-config — fields injected from project/distro/component-group defaults never appear on the concrete component.

Downstream commands (build, render, prepare-sources, diff-sources) do run the resolver (applyInheritedDefaultsToComponentExpandResolvedOverlayFiles), so the artifacts they produce are correct. The gap is display-only, but it makes config dump misleading as an authoring/debugging aid.

Repro

Given a component using the per-file overlay format:

# base/comps/GraphicsMagick/GraphicsMagick.comp.toml
[components.GraphicsMagick]
overlay-files = ["overlays/*.overlay.toml"]
# base/comps/GraphicsMagick/overlays/0001-drop-libheif-build-dependency.overlay.toml
[metadata]
category = "azl-dep-missing-workaround"

[[overlays]]
type = "spec-remove-tag"
tag = "BuildRequires"
value = "libheif-devel"

Then:

$ azldev config dump -f json | jq '.components.GraphicsMagick.overlays'
null

But azldev component list -p GraphicsMagick -O json | jq '.[0].Overlays' shows the overlay, and azldev component render -p GraphicsMagick correctly removes the BuildRequires: libheif-devel line from the rendered spec.

Impact

  • Confuses users during authoring — a config that clearly "works" appears empty in the dump, prompting incorrect "my overlays aren't being applied" diagnoses.
  • Blocks the documented pattern of using azldev config dump -q -O json | jq ... for ad-hoc queries about effective component config (works today only for fields authored inline).
  • Makes the MCP config-dump tool less useful for coding agents that ask "what is the effective config for component X?".

Suggested fix

Add a flag to config dump that runs the per-component resolver before serialization. Some options:

  • A (preferred): azldev config dump --resolved (or --expand) — off by default to preserve today's round-trippable output; when set, iterates components through the resolver and replaces the components map with resolved copies (including expanded overlays and merged inherited defaults).
  • B: Always dump the resolved view; drop the round-trippability guarantee. Breaking change; probably not worth it.
  • C: Documentation-only — clarify in Long help and config-file.md that config dump is pre-resolver and point users to component list -O json for the resolved view. Cheapest fix but doesn't help the MCP-tool case.

Happy to send a PR for option A if the team agrees on the shape.

Related code

  • Dump entry point: internal/app/azldev/cmds/config/dump.go — marshals raw env.Config().
  • Resolver used by build/render/prepare-sources: internal/app/azldev/core/components/resolver.goResolver.FindComponentsgetComponentFromNameAndSpecPathapplyInheritedDefaultsToComponentExpandResolvedOverlayFiles.
  • Feature introduced by PR fix(overlays): expand overlay files after config resolution #256 (per-file overlays / inherited overlay-files); this gap has existed since then.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions