MAKERS & BUILDERS - Drupal's next leap: configuration validation
Channel: Drupal Association
Date: 2023-11-27

DrupalCon Lille 2023

Drupal 8 shipped with many exciting new concepts, including "configuration", "configuration and content entities", "validation constraints" and "API-First".

The missing link between these has always been the inability to modify configuration through Drupal's REST or JSON:API. Because only content entities have validation constraints.

This has been the #1 blocker to the Drupal (JS) Admin UI initiative: validation of configuration unfortunately (but understandably) still is hardcoded in the PHP-based form logic.

But … in the background, the foundation was laid during the Drupal 8 cycle to validate configuration. In fact, one contrib module has been doing it since 3 years before this DrupalCon is taking place — no core hacks required.

In 2022, Drupal 10's CKEditor 5 module is the first time that Drupal core is using validation constraints instead of form-based validation logic!

In 2023, we've been slowly but steadily expanding the foundations throughout Drupal core…

Not only does this allow modifying configuration through APIs, it also allows us to eliminate subtle configuration errors that go unnoticed, and thus make Drupal more reliable in general!

It also paves the path for the Recipes Initiative as well as the many configuration management-related modules to become much more reliable.

Come and find out what you can do with config validation, how you can use it *today* and … if you like: how you can help us reach the finish line :)