Config File Discovery

Config File Discovery

How wip finds wip.yml, what version: means, and how the wslc: block resolves the binary.

Finding wip.yml

With no --config, wip starts in the current directory and walks up to the filesystem root, taking the first wip.yml it finds. That's what makes this work:

cd my-project/app/models
wip rspec            # still uses my-project/wip.yml

If nothing is found:

wip.yml was not found (searched from /path/to/cwd to the filesystem root)

Pointing at one explicitly

wip --config /path/to/wip.yml up
wip up --config /path/to/wip.yml

Both spellings work — wip pulls leading global switches off the front of ARGV and reinserts them after the command name. See Global Options.

The path is expanded against the current directory. wip init --config PATH writes there too.

Paths are relative to wip.yml, not the cwd

Everything wip resolves from config is anchored to the directory holding wip.yml:

• compose.file
• sync.source
• a build command's context
• the .env file (unless --env-file overrides it)
• compose-native's default network name (the directory's basename)

This is what keeps behavior identical from any subdirectory.

version:

version: 1

Only 1 is supported. Omitting it is the same as 1. Any other value:

Unsupported configuration version: 2

YAML parsing rules

wip.yml is parsed with a safe loader: no custom Ruby classes and no YAML aliases. An anchor/alias in wip.yml (<<: *defaults) is a parse error:

Could not parse /path/wip.yml: Unknown alias: defaults

compose.yml, by contrast, is parsed with aliases enabled, because merge keys are common and long-standing in real compose files. See Compose File Support.

Mapping keys are stringified throughout, so env: {PORT: 3000} and env: {"PORT": "3000"} are equivalent — and every env value is converted to a string.

The wslc: block

wslc:
  command: auto

Value	Behavior
auto (default)	try wslc.exe, then wslc, then /mnt/c/Windows/System32/wslc.exe
any other name	must be executable on PATH
an absolute path	must be executable at that path

A name containing a path separator is checked directly with File.executable?; a bare name is looked up across PATH. Failure raises CommandNotFoundError listing everything it checked:

WSLC was not found.

Checked:
  wslc.exe
  wslc
  /mnt/c/Windows/System32/wslc.exe

Install or update the WSL container tooling, then run:

  wip doctor

See WSLC Not Found.

Note that wip version swallows this error — it still prints wip's own version when wslc is missing. Every other command fails.

Related

• Global Options — --config, --env-file
• wip config — print the effective, resolved configuration
• wip init — generate a starter file