"mise use" creates new config despite mise.toml existing in current directory

[kleinfreund]

Problem statement

Running mise use node creates a new ~/.config/mise/config.toml file despite ~/mise.toml existing and mise doctor indicating that it knows about that existing config file. I expected ~/mise.toml to be updated instead. The documentation (https://mise.jdx.dev/configuration.html) also suggests that mise.toml should take priority over ~/.config/mise/config.toml so I'm confused as to why a new configuration file is being created (even without the priority, the fact that ~/mise.toml exists whereas ~/.config/mise doesn't should be enough for mise to use the existing file).

Running mise cfg again, however, seems to contradict the documentation as it now lists ~/.config/mise/config.toml before mise.toml

Context

All the following commands were executed in ~.

mise cfg:

Path         Tools
~/.nvmrc     node
~/mise.toml  (none)

cat mise.toml:

[settings]
idiomatic_version_file_enable_tools = ["node"]

mise doctor:

version: 2025.7.30 macos-arm64 (2025-07-29)
activated: yes
shims_on_path: no
self_update_available: no

build_info:
  Target: aarch64-apple-darwin
  Features: DEFAULT, NATIVE_TLS, SELF_UPDATE
  Built: Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:21:51 +0000
  Rust Version: rustc 1.88.0 (6b00bc388 2025-06-23) (Homebrew)
  Profile: release

shell:
  /bin/zsh
  zsh 5.9 (arm64-apple-darwin24.0)

aqua:
  baked in registry tools: 0 – aqua registry tools are not compiled into mise, will be fetched dynamically from https://mise-versions.jdx.dev

dirs:
  cache: ~/Library/Caches/mise
  config: ~/.config/mise
  data: ~/.local/share/mise
  shims: ~/.local/share/mise/shims
  state: ~/.local/state/mise

config_files:
  ~/.nvmrc
  ~/mise.toml

ignored_config_files: (none)

backends:
  aqua
  asdf
  cargo
  core
  dotnet
  gem
  github
  gitlab
  go
  npm
  pipx
  spm
  http
  ubi
  vfox

plugins:

toolset:
  core:node@24.4.1  (missing)

path:
  removed

env_vars:
  MISE_SHELL=zsh

settings:
  idiomatic_version_file_enable_tools  ["node"] ~/mise.toml

1 problem found:

1. tool core:node@24.4.1 is not installed, install with `mise install`

References:

• Related issue, but somehow inverted: default_config_filename setting not working, but MISE_DEFAULT_CONFIG_FILENAME env is #5791

[jdx]

I imagine mise isn't well-tolerating a config file in the home directory root—which isn't a common practice. Could probably be fixed. You could probably also configure that to be your global config if that's the behavior you want.

[kleinfreund]

Ultimately, I think using ~/.config/mise/config.toml is fine for my purposes. My goal is to configure idiomatic version files to be enabled for the node tool (that's the main reason I need a configuration file in the first place) and for there to be a global tool file in my home directory for the default/global node version (e.g. .nvmrc or .node-version). Projects with their own tool files would take precedence when navigating to them and inside of them and projects without a tool file would use the global versions unless otherwise specifier/set-up.