Configuration Failures

Configuration failures can have a huge blast radius because _config.yml influences the whole build.

Failure family: stale running configuration

You edit _config.yml but the already-running server did not reload the changed setting.

Evidence:

• source config contains new value;
• generated output still reflects old value;
• restarting/building fresh changes behavior.

Failure family: wrong key

base_url: /portfolio

instead of the key the templates/Jekyll actually use.

Valid YAML.

Wrong configuration contract.

Failure family: wrong type

A value intended to be a list/mapping is a scalar string.

Templates or plugins may behave unexpectedly.

Failure family: copied example identity

url/title/repository values belong to somebody else's tutorial.

Everything builds.

Production metadata is wrong.

Controlled failure

In a disposable branch/copy, change one site-wide config value so multiple pages produce a wrong but predictable result.

Use failure scope as evidence pointing to shared config.

Checkpoint

Complete:

Because the same wrong value appears on __________ generated pages, I inspected __________ before editing each page individually.