# Basic Configuration

Basic configuration examples.

## Overview

Generating a configuration file for your application is the easiest way to use the command-line
tool. The configuration specifies the location of the version file, either by a path to the file or
by the module that a `Version.swift` file resides in. It also declares the strategy for generating
new versions.

The command-line tool comes with a command to generate the configuration file for you, this should
be ran from the root of your project or by specifying the path to write the configuration file to
using the `-f | --configuration-file` option. The below examples assume that you're running in the
root project directory.

```bash
bump-version config generate --target-module my-tool
```

The above command produces the following in a file named `.bump-version.json` with the generated
default settings. This will generate semvar style version (example: `1.0.0`).

```json
{
  "strategy": {
    "semvar": {
      "allowPreRelease": true,
      "strategy": {
        "gitTag": {
          "exactMatch": false
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "target": {
    "module": {
      "name": "my-tool"
    }
  }
}
```

> Note: The above does not add a pre-release strategy although it "allows" it if you pass an option
> to command later, if you set "allowPreRelease" to false it will ignore any attempts to add a
> pre-release strategy when bumping the version.

Most commands accept the same options for configuration as the above `config generate` command.
Those get merged with your project configuration when calling a command, that allows you to override
any of your defaults depending on your use case. You can also generate several configuration files
and specify them by passing the `-f | --configuration-file` to the command.

## Inspecting parsed configuration.

You can inspect the configuration that get's parsed by using the `config dump` command. The dump
command will print the parsed `json` to `stdout`, which can be helpful in confirming that your
configuration is valid and does not work unexpectedly.

```bash
bump-version config dump <options / overrides>
```

The dump command can also be used to generate a different configuration that is merged with your
default.

```bash
bump-version config dump --pre-release-git-tag-style > .bump-version.prerelease.json
```

Which would produce the following in `.bump-version.prerelease.json`

```json
{
  "strategy": {
    "semvar": {
      "allowPreRelease": true,
      "preRelease": {
        "strategy": {
          "gitTag": {}
        }
      },
      "strategy": {
        "gitTag": {
          "exactMatch": false
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "target": {
    "module": {
      "name": "my-tool"
    }
  }
}
```

You could then use this file when bumping your version.

```bash
bump-version bump -f .bump-version.prerelease.json
```

> See Also: <doc:ConfigurationReference>