Summary

Application configuration is a deceptively complex problem. Everyone who is building a project that gets used more than once will end up needing to add configuration to control aspects of behavior or manage connections to other systems and services. At first glance it seems simple, but can quickly become unwieldy. Bruno Rocha created Dynaconf in an effort to provide a simple interface with powerful capabilities for managing settings across environments with a set of strong opinions. In this episode he shares the story behind the project, how its design allows for adapting to various applications, and how you can start using it today for your own projects.

Announcements

• Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great!
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• Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Bruno Rocha about Dynaconf, a powerful and flexible framework for managing your application’s configuration settings

Interview

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• Can you describe what Dynaconf is and the story behind it?
• What are your main goals for Dynaconf?
  • What kinds of projects (e.g. web, devops, ML, etc.) are you focused on supporting with Dynaconf?
• Settings management is a deceptively complex and detailed aspect of software engineering, with a lot of conflicting opinions about the "right way". What are the design philosophies that you lean on for Dynaconf?
• Many engineers end up building their own frameworks for managing settings as their use cases and environments get increasingly complicated. What are some of the ways that those efforts can go wrong or become unmaintainable?
• Can you describe how Dynaconf is implemented?
  • How have the design and goals of the project evolved since you first started it?
• What is the workflow for getting started with Dynaconf on a new project?
  • How does the usage scale with the complexity of the host project?
• What are some strategies that you recommend for integrating Dynaconf into an existing project that already has complex requirements for settings across multiple environments?
• Secrets management is one of the most frequently under- or over-engineered aspects of application configuration. What are some of the ways that you have worked to strike a balance of making the "right way" easy?
• What are some of the more advanced or under-utilized capabilities of Dynaconf?
• What are the most interesting, innovative, or unexpected ways that you have seen Dynaconf used?
• What are the most interesting, unexpected, or challenging lessons that you have learned while working on Dynaconf?
• When is Dynaconf the wrong choice?
• What do you have planned for the future of Dynaconf?

Keep In Touch

• rochacbruno on GitHub
• @rochacbruno on Twitter
• Website
• LinkedIn

Picks

• Tobias
  • SOPS
• Bruno
  • Severance tv series
  • Learn Rust

Closing Announcements

• Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other shows. The Data Engineering Podcast covers the latest on modern data management. The Machine Learning Podcast helps you go from idea to production with machine learning.
• Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.
• If you’ve learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email hosts@podcastinit.com) with your story.
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Links

• Dynaconf
• Dynaconf GitHub Org
• Ansible
• Bash
• Perl
• 12 Factor Applications
• TOML
• Hashicorp Vault
• Pydantic
• Airflow
• Hydroconf

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA