Settingsaddressing

Settingsaddressing is a term used in software engineering to describe the process and mechanism by which configuration settings are identified, stored, and retrieved by applications and services. The goal is to provide a consistent way to address settings across different components and environments.

Addresses for settings may take multiple forms: hierarchical paths, dot-delimited keys, or resource identifiers such as URLs. Settings originate from various sources, including configuration files, environment variables, databases, and centralized configuration services. A resolution strategy defines the order in which sources are consulted and how overrides are applied by environment, region, or deployment.

Key concepts include namespaces or scopes (global, application, component, user), defaults, environment-specific overrides, and secret handling. Centralized configuration stores enable dynamic updates and propagation, while local stores provide quick access and offline operation.

In practice, settings addressing supports patterns such as immutability by versioning, change auditing, and validation of types and constraints. It also involves security considerations, including access control and encryption for sensitive values.

Challenges include consistency across distributed components, caching, latency of updates, and version drift. Best practices emphasize explicit schemas, strong typing, explicit change management, and clear documentation of the addressing scheme.

Although the term is used in various contexts, settings addressing is not tied to a single standard. It is a general concept that underpins configuration management, feature flags, and deployment automation.

See also: configuration management, centralized configuration, environment variables, config file, feature flags.