grunt.config.md

Access project-specific configuration data defined in the Gruntfile.

Note that any method marked with a ☃ (unicode snowman) is also available directly on the grunt object, and any method marked with a ☆ (white star) is also available inside tasks on the this object. Just so you know.

Initializing Config Data

Note that the following method is also available on the grunt object as grunt.initConfig.

grunt.config.init ☃

Initialize a configuration object for the current project. The specified configObject is used by tasks and can be accessed using the grunt.config method. Nearly every project's Gruntfile will call this method.

grunt.config.init(configObject)

Note that any specified <% %> template strings will be processed when config data is retrieved.

This example contains sample config data for the grunt-contrib-jshint plugin jshint task:

grunt.config.init({
  jshint: {
    all: ['lib/*.js', 'test/*.js', 'Gruntfile.js']
  }
});

See the [[Getting started]] guide for more configuration examples.

This method is also available as grunt.initConfig.

Accessing Config Data

The following methods allow Grunt configuration data to be accessed either via dot-delimited string like 'pkg.author.name' or via array of property name parts like ['pkg', 'author', 'name'].

Note that if a specified property name contains a . dot, it must be escaped with a literal backslash, eg. 'concat.dist/built\\.js'. If an array of parts is specified, Grunt will handle the escaping internally with the grunt.config.escape method.

grunt.config

Get or set a value from the project's Grunt configuration. This method serves as an alias to other methods; if two arguments are passed, grunt.config.set is called, otherwise grunt.config.get is called.

grunt.config([prop [, value]])

grunt.config.get

Get a value from the project's Grunt configuration. If prop is specified, that property's value is returned, or null if that property is not defined. If prop isn't specified, a copy of the entire config object is returned. Templates strings will be recursively processed using the grunt.config.process method.

grunt.config.get([prop])

grunt.config.process

Process a value, recursively expanding <% %> templates (via the grunt.template.process method) in the context of the Grunt config, as they are encountered. this method is called automatically by grunt.config.get but not by grunt.config.getRaw.

grunt.config.process(value)

If any retrieved value is entirely a single '<%= foo %>' or '<%= foo.bar %>' template string, and the specified foo or foo.bar property is a non-string (and not null or undefined) value, it will be expanded to the actual value. That, combined with grunt's task system automatically flattening arrays, can be extremely useful.

grunt.config.getRaw

Get a raw value from the project's Grunt configuration, without processing <% %> template strings. If prop is specified, that property's value is returned, or null if that property is not defined. If prop isn't specified, a copy of the entire config object is returned.

grunt.config.getRaw([prop])

grunt.config.set

Set a value into the project's Grunt configuration.

grunt.config.set(prop, value)

Note that any specified <% %> template strings will only be processed when config data is retrieved.

grunt.config.escape

Escape . dots in the given propString. This should be used for property names that contain dots.

grunt.config.escape(propString)

grunt.config.merge

Added in 0.4.5

Recursively merges properties of the specified configObject into the current project configuration. Array and plain object properties are merged recursively while other value types are overridden.

grunt.config.merge(configObject)

You can use this method to append configuration options, targets, etc., to already defined tasks, for example:

grunt.config.merge({
  watch: {
    files: ["path/to/files"],
    tasks: ["task"]
  }
});

Array values are merged based on their index. Consider the following code:

grunt.initConfig({
  jshint: {
    files: ['Gruntfile.js', 'src/**/*.js'],
  }
);

var config = {
  jshint: {
    files: ['hello.js'],
  }
};

grunt.config.merge(config);

It'll result in the configuration shown below:

jshint: {
  files: ['hello.js', 'src/**/*.js'],
}

In conclusion, the first value of the files array defined in the config variable (hello.js) overrides the first value specified in the initConfig configuration call (Gruntfile.js).

Requiring Config Data

Note that the method listed below is also available inside tasks on the this object as this.requiresConfig.

grunt.config.requires ☆

Fail the current task if one or more required config properties is missing, null or undefined. One or more string or array config properties may be specified.

grunt.config.requires(prop [, prop [, ...]])

This method is also available inside tasks as this.requiresConfig.