Nuxt/docs/2.guide/2.directory-structure/3.app-config.md

title	head.title	description	navigation.icon
app.config.ts	app.config.ts	Expose reactive configuration within your application with the App Config file.	i-ph-file-duotone

Nuxt provides an app.config config file to expose reactive configuration within your application with the ability to update it at runtime within lifecycle or using a nuxt plugin and editing it with HMR (hot-module-replacement).

You can easily provide runtime app configuration using app.config.ts file. It can have either of .ts, .js, or .mjs extensions.

export default defineAppConfig({
  foo: 'bar'
})

::caution Do not put any secret values inside app.config file. It is exposed to the user client bundle. ::

Usage

To expose config and environment variables to the rest of your app, you will need to define configuration in app.config file.

export default defineAppConfig({
  theme: {
    primaryColor: '#ababab'
  }
})

When adding theme to the app.config, Nuxt uses Vite or webpack to bundle the code. We can universally access theme both when server-rendering the page and in the browser using useAppConfig composable.

<script setup lang="ts">
const appConfig = useAppConfig()

console.log(appConfig.theme)
</script>

When configuring a custom srcDir, make sure to place the app.config file at the root of the new srcDir path.

Typing App Config

Nuxt tries to automatically generate a TypeScript interface from provided app config so you won't have to type it yourself.

However, there are some cases where you might want to type it yourself. There are two possible things you might want to type.

App Config Input

AppConfigInput might be used by module authors who are declaring what valid input options are when setting app config. This will not affect the type of useAppConfig().

declare module 'nuxt/schema' {
  interface AppConfigInput {
    /** Theme configuration */
    theme?: {
      /** Primary app color */
      primaryColor?: string
    }
  }
}

// It is always important to ensure you import/export something when augmenting a type
export {}

App Config Output

If you want to type the result of calling useAppConfig(), then you will want to extend AppConfig.

::warning Be careful when typing AppConfig as you will overwrite the types Nuxt infers from your actually defined app config. ::

declare module 'nuxt/schema' {
  interface AppConfig {
    // This will entirely replace the existing inferred `theme` property
    theme: {
      // You might want to type this value to add more specific types than Nuxt can infer,
      // such as string literal types
      primaryColor?: 'red' | 'blue'
    }
  }
}

// It is always important to ensure you import/export something when augmenting a type
export {}

Merging Strategy

Nuxt uses a custom merging strategy for the AppConfig within the layers of your application.

This strategy is implemented using a Function Merger, which allows defining a custom merging strategy for every key in app.config that has an array as value.

::note The function merger can only be used in the extended layers and not the main app.config in project. ::

Here's an example of how you can use:

::code-group

export default defineAppConfig({
  // Default array value
  array: ['hello'],
})

export default defineAppConfig({
  // Overwrite default array value by using a merger function
  array: () => ['bonjour'],
})

::

Known Limitations

As of Nuxt v3.3, the app.config.ts file is shared with Nitro, which results in the following limitations:

1. You cannot import Vue components directly in app.config.ts.
2. Some auto-imports are not available in the Nitro context.

These limitations occur because Nitro processes the app config without full Vue component support.

While it's possible to use Vite plugins in the Nitro config as a workaround, this approach is not recommended:

export default defineNuxtConfig({
  nitro: {
    vite: {
      plugins: [vue()]
    }
  }
})

::warning Using this workaround may lead to unexpected behavior and bugs. The Vue plugin is one of many that are not available in the Nitro context. ::

Related issues:

• Issue #19858
• Issue #19854

::info Nitro v3 will resolve these limitations by removing support for the app config. You can track the progress in this pull request. ::