project config location and lookup process

[dherman]

It's come up in some discussions that we might want to consider putting Notion config information in a separate config file (e.g. my_project/.notionrc or maybe my_project/.config/notion/config), and nudge projects towards putting that file in their .npmignore, possibly by automating the workflow of configuring Notion through notion commands, like notion init.

I'll try to capture the constraints in this comment (and edit them if/when we identify more in discussion).

Constraints

• Should libraries' config go into the npm registry?
• What should the mental model be when you cd into my_project/node_modules/some_dependency?
• What is the adoption overhead of the config strategy?
• What behavior makes sense in large monorepos?

[dherman]

I want to start with a suggestion that we don't make this change, for the following reasons:

• I think there's a good case to be made the libraries do want their config to go in the npm registry, so e.g. when you cd into my_project/node_modules/some_dependency you can call that dependency's commands and get the right versions of the toolchain.
• I think it's easier for developers to have a mental model that's a simple walk up the filesystem, just like the require/package.json resolution process.
• It's lower project overhead to add a key to package.json than add a separate file.

I think there's time to experiment with package.json and see how it interacts with dependencies, and see if we learn what problem cases it has if any.

[dherman]

Ah, another constraint to be sure we think about is large monorepos.