Configuration-driven development with AI

Advanced AI-Assisted Coding for Developers

Thalia Barrera

AI Engineering Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

What is configuration-driven development?

What is configuration-driven development

💻 Logic stays in code
📁 Settings go into config files

Why go config-driven?

Config-driven benefits

# pipeline_config.yaml

pipeline:
  name: user_events_etl
  version: "1.0"

source:
  type: mongodb_atlas
  collection: raw_events
  batch_size: 500

transform:
  drop_nulls: true
  normalize_timestamps: true

destination:
  type: postgres
  table: processed_events
  mode: append

✔ Modular components
✔ Stable interface between teams
✔ Reproducible runs across environments

Prompting for a config architecture

AI proposes a config strategy

Choosing a config format

🤖 Config format prompt:

You are a senior developer responsible for maintainability.

We need configuration files for our pipeline. Based on your previous analysis and the project structure, compare JSON, YAML, and TOML formats based on maintainability, complexity, and ecosystem fit. Recommend one default format, and explain why and when the others are better.