Export your configuration schema

The config schema already contains everything needed to describe your configuration: structure, types, defaults, descriptions, and sensitivity flags. Exporting it serializes what's already there — downstream tooling gets accurate, up-to-date documentation without a separate maintenance step.

The @config-bound/schema-export package produces JSON and YAML output.

Steps

1. Install the package:

npm install @config-bound/schema-export

2. Export the schema and write it to disk:

import {
  ConfigBound,
  configItem,
  configSection,
  configEnum
} from "@config-bound/config-bound";
import { EnvVarBind } from "@config-bound/config-bound";
import {
  exportSchema,
  formatAsJSON,
  formatAsYAML
} from "@config-bound/schema-export";
import { z } from "zod";
import { writeFileSync } from "fs";

const config = await ConfigBound.createConfig(
  {
    port: configItem<number>({
      default: 3000,
      validator: z.number().int().min(1).max(65535),
      description: "Application server port",
      example: 8080
    }),
    environment: configEnum({
      values: ["development", "production"],
      default: "development",
      description: "Runtime environment"
    }),
    database: configSection(
      {
        host: configItem<string>({
          default: "localhost",
          validator: z.hostname(),
          description: "Database host"
        }),
        port: configItem<number>({
          default: 5432,
          validator: z.number().int().min(1).max(65535),
          description: "Database port"
        }),
        password: configItem<string>({
          validator: z.string().min(1),
          description: "Database password",
          sensitive: true
        })
      },
      "Database configuration"
    )
  },
  {
    binds: [new EnvVarBind({ prefix: "MYAPP" })]
  }
);

const schema = exportSchema(config.name, config.sections);

writeFileSync("config-schema.json", formatAsJSON(schema));
writeFileSync("config-schema.yaml", formatAsYAML(schema));

Run this as part of your build or CI pipeline to keep the exported schema in sync with the code.

Control what's included

By default, exportSchema excludes elements marked omitFromSchema: true. Pass true as the third argument to include them:

const publicSchema = exportSchema(config.name, config.sections);
const fullSchema = exportSchema(config.name, config.sections, true);

Use omitFromSchema for config items that are internal implementation details — values a consumer of your application doesn't need to know about:

internalKey: configItem<string>({
  description: "Internal routing key",
  default: "default-key",
  omitFromSchema: true
})

Format options

formatAsJSON produces pretty-printed JSON by default. Pass false to produce compact output:

const pretty = formatAsJSON(schema);         // indented
const compact = formatAsJSON(schema, false); // minified

formatAsYAML always produces human-readable YAML with no options.

Related

• exportSchema API reference
• Schema as the source of truth