Drupal Configuration Management in Practice

Drupal’s Configuration Management system exports site configuration (content types, fields, Views, roles, settings) to YAML files that live in Git. That one feature changes how a team ships Drupal.

The basic loop

1. Make a change in your local site.
2. Export with drush cex.
3. Review the YAML diff in a pull request.
4. On deploy, run drush updb, drush cim, then drush cr.

Habits that help

• Never edit config directly on production. If it is not in Git, it will be overwritten or lost.
• Use config splits for settings that differ by environment, such as debug modules and API endpoints.
• Keep secrets out of config. Put keys in environment variables or settings.php overrides.
• Review config diffs like code. A removed field or permission is as important as a changed function.

Content is different

Configuration is not content. Nodes, media and users move through migrations, syncs or editorial workflow, not config export.

A clean config workflow is also what makes upgrades and migrations safe, because you can rebuild the same site from the repository on any environment.