Do not quote valid json values during processing.

pyproject.toml

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "configly"
-version = "0.2.1"
+version = "0.2.2"
 description = ""
 authors = []
 license = "MIT"

src/configly/utilities.py

@@ -15,13 +15,24 @@ def quote_string(value: str):
 
     >>> quote_string('''q"u'x''')
     '"q\\"u\'x"'
+
+    >>> quote_string('{"log_level": "INFO"}')
+    '{"log_level": "INFO"}'
     """
     if (value.startswith('"') and value.endswith('"')) or (
         value.startswith("'") and value.endswith("'")
     ):
         # NOTE:
         #   Single quotes aren't always accepted as valid syntax.
+        #   And just because a value is surrounded by quotes, does not mean it is correctly quoted.
         #   In that case we would rely on the user of this fn to raise a helpful error.
         return value
 
-    return json.dumps(value)
+    try:
+        json.loads(value)
+    except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
+        # If the value is unable to load via json.loads, this means we have to quote it
+        # and perform any necessary escaping.
+        return json.dumps(value)
+
+    return value

tests/test_process.py

@@ -128,3 +128,10 @@ def test_null_default_value_with_pre_and_post(self):
         input_ = {"foo": "1<% ENV[foo, null] %>2"}
         config = Config(post_process(yaml, input_))
         assert config.foo == "1null2"
+
+    @patch("os.environ", new={"foo": '{"hello": "world"}'})
+    def test_object_values(self):
+        input_ = {"foo": "<% ENV[foo] %>"}
+        config = Config(post_process(yaml, input_))
+        assert type(config.foo) == Config
+        assert config.foo.to_dict() == {"hello": "world"}