Configuration

This page documents west’s configuration file system, the west config command, and configuration options used by built-in commands. For API documentation on the west.configuration module, see West APIs.

West Configuration Files

West’s configuration file syntax is INI-like; here is an example file:

[manifest]
path = zephyr

[zephyr]
base = zephyr

Above, the manifest section has option path set to zephyr. Another way to say the same thing is that manifest.path is zephyr in this file.

There are three types of configuration file:

1. System: Settings in this file affect west’s behavior for every user logged in to the computer. Its location depends on the platform:

   • Linux: /etc/westconfig

   • macOS: /usr/local/etc/westconfig

   • Windows: %PROGRAMDATA%\west\config

2. Global (per user): Settings in this file affect how west behaves when run by a particular user on the computer.

   • All platforms: the default is .westconfig in the user’s home directory.

   • Linux note: if the environment variable XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, then $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/west/config is used.

   • Windows note: the following environment variables are tested to find the home directory: %HOME%, then %USERPROFILE%, then a combination of %HOMEDRIVE% and %HOMEPATH%.

3. Local: Settings in this file affect west’s behavior for the current west workspace. The file is .west/config, relative to the workspace’s root directory.

A setting in a file which appears lower down on this list overrides an earlier setting. For example, if color.ui is true in the system’s configuration file, but false in the workspace’s, then the final value is false. Similarly, settings in the user configuration file override system settings, and so on.

West config Command

The built-in config command can be used to get and set configuration values. You can pass west config the options --system, --global, or --local to specify which configuration file to use. Only one of these can be used at a time. If none is given, then writes default to --local, and reads show the final value after applying overrides.

Some examples for common uses follow; run west config -h for detailed help, and see Built-in Configuration Options for more details on built-in options.

To set manifest.path to some-other-manifest:

west config manifest.path some-other-manifest

Doing the above means that commands like west update will look for the west manifest inside the some-other-manifest directory (relative to the workspace root directory) instead of the directory given to west init, so be careful!

To read zephyr.base, the value which will be used as ZEPHYR_BASE if it is unset in the calling environment (also relative to the workspace root):

west config zephyr.base

You can switch to another zephyr repository without changing manifest.path – and thus the behavior of commands like west update – using:

west config zephyr.base some-other-zephyr

This can be useful if you use commands like git worktree to create your own zephyr directories, and want commands like west build to use them instead of the zephyr repository specified in the manifest. (You can go back to using the directory in the upstream manifest by running west config zephyr.base zephyr.)

To set color.ui to false in the global (user-wide) configuration file, so that west will no longer print colored output for that user when run in any workspace:

west config --global color.ui false

To undo the above change:

west config --global color.ui true

Built-in Configuration Options

The following table documents configuration options supported by west’s built-in commands. Configuration options supported by Zephyr’s extension commands are documented in the pages for those commands.

Option	Description
color.ui	Boolean. If true (the default), then west output is colorized when stdout is a terminal.
commands.allow_extensions	Boolean, default true, disables Extensions if false
manifest.path	String, relative path from the west workspace root directory to the manifest repository used by west update and other commands which parse the manifest. Set locally by west init.
update.fetch	String, one of "smart" (the default behavior starting in v0.6.1) or "always" (the previous behavior). If set to "smart", the west update command will skip fetching from project remotes when those projects’ revisions in the manifest file are SHAs or tags which are already available locally. The "always" behavior is to unconditionally fetch from the remote.
zephyr.base	String, default value to set for the ZEPHYR_BASE environment variable while the west command is running. By default, this is set to the path to the manifest project with path zephyr (if there is one) during west init. If the variable is already set, then this setting is ignored unless zephyr.base-prefer is "configfile".
zephyr.base-prefer	String, one the values "env" and "configfile". If set to "env" (the default), setting ZEPHYR_BASE in the calling environment overrides the value of the zephyr.base configuration option. If set to "configfile", the configuration option wins instead.