The repo already layered file defaults under environment overrides, on
both the backend (settings.yml < GOAUTO_*) and the frontend
(.env.production < process.env). What was missing was a translator for
production: config.yaml only ever existed for the PowerShell launchers,
so a packaged binary read none of it and had no database credentials
either — SYB was inheriting an existing gap, not creating one.
The server now reads config.yaml itself, between settings.yml and the
environment. Lookup is GOAUTO_CONFIG, then ./config.yaml, then beside the
executable, so a packaged binary works wherever it is started. An absent
file is not an error: containers supply everything through the
environment. Scalars are read by YAML type and coerced, so an unquoted
all-digit password cannot take startup down over a quoting detail.
This removed the need for a Read-SybConfig in PowerShell: the launcher
just hands over the path it already knows, rather than reimplementing a
YAML parser.
The server also serves the built frontend when dist is present, which is
what .env.production's empty VUE_APP_BASE_API already assumes. The
history fallback is restricted to non-API GETs, and is not installed at
all without dist, so development 404s stay 404s.
Precedence is mutation-tested: applying the local file after the
environment instead of before makes the layering test fail.
Not verified: the PowerShell change and any Windows deployment — both
need a run on the Windows side.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
