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name: read-configs description: Find and understand project configuration files. Discovers build configs, dependencies, env vars, CI/CD, and tool settings without reading full files. allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Grep, Glob

Config File Discovery

Find all configuration files in a project and understand what they control.

Quick Discovery

Find All Config Files

Copy# Common config files
ls -la *.yaml *.yml *.toml *.json *.ini .env* 2>/dev/null

# Recursive discovery
find . -type f \( \
  -name "*.yaml" -o -name "*.yml" -o -name "*.toml" -o \
  -name "*.json" -o -name "*.ini" -o -name ".env*" -o \
  -name "*.config.js" -o -name "*.config.ts" \
\) -not -path "*/.git/*" -not -path "*/node_modules/*" 2>/dev/null | head -40

Config Categories

1. Python Project

Copy# Core Python configs
ls -la pyproject.toml setup.py setup.cfg requirements*.txt 2>/dev/null

# pyproject.toml sections
grep "^\[" pyproject.toml 2>/dev/null

# Dependencies
grep -A 20 "dependencies" pyproject.toml 2>/dev/null | head -25

2. Node/TypeScript Project

Copy# Core Node configs
ls -la package.json package-lock.json tsconfig*.json 2>/dev/null

# package.json scripts
grep -A 20 '"scripts"' package.json 2>/dev/null | head -25

# Dependencies
grep -A 30 '"dependencies"' package.json 2>/dev/null | head -35

3. Environment Variables

Copy# Find env files
ls -la .env* env.* 2>/dev/null

# List env var names (not values - security!)
grep -h "^[A-Z]" .env* 2>/dev/null | cut -d'=' -f1 | sort | uniq

# Find env var usage in code
rg "os\.environ|os\.getenv|process\.env" --type py --type ts --type js -l 2>/dev/null

4. GCP/Cloud Configs

Copy# GCP configs
ls -la app.yaml cloudbuild.yaml *.tf terraform.tfvars 2>/dev/null

# Cloud Run / Cloud Functions
grep -l "runtime:" *.yaml 2>/dev/null
grep -l "cloud.google.com" *.yaml 2>/dev/null

5. CI/CD Configs

Copy# GitHub Actions
ls -la .github/workflows/*.yaml .github/workflows/*.yml 2>/dev/null

# Workflow triggers
grep -h "^on:" .github/workflows/*.y*ml 2>/dev/null

# Other CI
ls -la .gitlab-ci.yml Jenkinsfile .circleci/config.yml 2>/dev/null

6. Build/Dev Tools

Copy# Linters & Formatters
ls -la .eslintrc* .prettierrc* .ruff.toml ruff.toml mypy.ini .flake8 2>/dev/null

# Build tools
ls -la Makefile BUILD.bazel *.bzl Dockerfile docker-compose*.yml 2>/dev/null

# Editor configs
ls -la .editorconfig .vscode/settings.json 2>/dev/null

7. Database/ORM

Copy# Database configs
ls -la alembic.ini prisma/schema.prisma 2>/dev/null

# Find connection strings (names only)
rg "DATABASE|POSTGRES|MYSQL|MONGO|REDIS" --type py --type ts -l 2>/dev/null

Full Config Scan

One-liner to find ALL configs:

Copyecho "=== PYTHON ===" && ls pyproject.toml setup.py 2>/dev/null
echo "=== NODE ===" && ls package.json tsconfig.json 2>/dev/null
echo "=== ENV ===" && ls .env* 2>/dev/null
echo "=== CLOUD ===" && ls app.yaml cloudbuild.yaml *.tf 2>/dev/null
echo "=== CI/CD ===" && ls .github/workflows/*.y*ml 2>/dev/null | head -5
echo "=== DOCKER ===" && ls Dockerfile docker-compose*.yml 2>/dev/null
echo "=== BUILD ===" && ls Makefile BUILD.bazel 2>/dev/null

Reading Config Sections

Once you find configs, extract specific sections:

Copy# TOML sections
grep "^\[" pyproject.toml

# YAML top-level keys
grep "^[a-z]" config.yaml | head -20

# JSON top-level keys
cat package.json | grep -E '^\s{2}"[a-z]' | head -20

Security Note

NEVER output actual values from:

• .env files
• *secrets* files
• credentials.json
• Files containing API keys, tokens, passwords

Only list variable NAMES, never VALUES.

Token Efficiency

This skill returns file lists and section headers, not full content. Read individual configs only when you need specific values.

Related Skills

• codebase-index: Entry points, classes, API routes
• index-docs: Documentation structure
• startup: Full session bootstrap