[BUG]: config new returns error after creating a new config

[garrytrinder]

Description

devproxy config new is a command that can create an empty configuration file.

Expected behaviour

If a file already exists, the command should gracefully fail, by saying that a file already exists or create a new file with an different name, for example, devproxyrc.json > devproxyrc1.json

Actual behaviour

Steps to reproduce

1. devproxy config new
2. devproxy config new

Dev Proxy Version

v0.25.0

Operating system (environment)

macOS

Shell

zsh

Configuration file

N\A

Additional Info

No response

[garrytrinder]

Some additional behaviour...

You are in a directory that does not have a devproxyrc.json file. You create one using devproxy config new and leave it as is. You create another config file using the devproxy config new command passing in a filename. The error is also shown.

If you don't have a devproxyrc.json in the current directory then you can create as many named config files as you want without getting the error.

[waldekmastykarz]

This is by design albeit weird and tripped me too. What's happening. You're in an empty folder. Using the config new command, you create a new config file. The file is empty and doesn't contain any plugins. The next time you run the config new command, Proxy uses the newly created config file which is invalid and which leads to the aforementioned error.

Since we have to load config file because plugins can expose commands, we either leave this as is or we update the template to contain at least one plugin. Alternatively we could allow starting Dev Proxy without any plugins to allow the use of its other commands.

[garrytrinder]

Thanks for the explanation.

What I find odd is that when he command is invoked for the second time it attempts to start Dev Proxy, rather than attempting to create a new config file. So whether you have a config with no plugins shouldn't really come into it IMO.

I understand why it's happening, but from an end user perspective the behaviour is confusing.

[waldekmastykarz]

What I find odd is that when he command is invoked for the second time it attempts to start Dev Proxy, rather than attempting to create a new config file. So whether you have a config with no plugins shouldn't really come into it IMO.

Not quite. Every time you launch a devproxy command (either root or a subcommand), it starts with loading the config file. If it finds a local one, it uses it. And in this case, the local config file is what we consider invalid at the moment. So perhaps we should revisit that decision.

[garrytrinder]

I think I prefer changing the ability to run dev proxy without plugins configured, but we show a message in the console, we could also shut down proxy after the message as there would no need to keep proxy running.

In Toolkit we should then change the code minting to show a warning instead of an error like we do currently.

[waldekmastykarz]

I think I prefer changing the ability to run dev proxy without plugins configured, but we show a message in the console, we could also shut down proxy after the message as there would no need to keep proxy running.

I reckon we'd only show this message when running the root command, right? Because for subcommands, plugins and URLs to watch don't matter.

[waldekmastykarz]

We decided:

• we allow running proxy without plugins or URLs to watch
• when called on the root command, we show a warning and close dev proxy