# Guideline On Refreshing Configuration Files Under etc/

During a release cycle many configuration options are changed or updated. The sample configuration files provided in tree (under `etc/*`) need to be updated using the autogeneration tool as these files are being used in different places. Some examples are devstack gates, downstream packagers shipping with the same (or using defaults from these files), etc. Hence, before we cut a release we need to refresh the configuration files shipped with tree to match the changes done in the source code during the release cycle.

In an ideal world, every review that proposes an addition, removal or update to a configuration option(s) should use the tox tool to refresh only the configuration options(s) that were changed. However, many of the configuration options like those coming from oslo.messaging, oslo_middleware, etc. may have changed in the meantime. So, whenever someone uses the tool to autogenerate the configuration files based on the options in tree, there are more changes than those made just by the author.

We do not recommend the authors to manually edit the autogenerated files so, a reasonable tradeoff is for the authors to include only those files that are affected by their change(s).

    $ tox -e genconfig

# When To Refresh The Sample Configuration Files

- Every review that proposes an addition, removal or update to a configuration option(s) should use the tox tool to refresh only the configuration option(s) they have changed.

- Ideally reviewers should request updates to sample configuration files for every change that attempts to add/delete/modify a configuration option(s) in the code.

- In some situations however, there may be a bunch of similar changes that are affecting the configuration files. In this case, in order to make the developers’ and reviewers’ effort easier, we recommend an update to the configuration files in bulk right after all the update changes have been made/merged.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All sample configuration files mush be updated before the milestone-3 (or the final release) of the project.

this page last updated: 2026-08-19 03:42:39

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