TIDE is a flexible, and type based configuration framework designed to streamline the way developers handle application configurations. Merging aspects of JSON, YAML, and TOML, TIDE offers a syntax that prioritizes readability, simplicity, and robustness. With TIDE, you can define complex configurations, ensuring they are both human-readable and machine-friendly. TIDE also offers built-in support for common configuration scenarios like environment variables, secrets, and schema definitions, making it a useful tool for managing application configurations in a modern cloud type environment.

• Readability and Simplicity: Like YAML, but more streamlined to minimize syntactic noise.
• Data Types and Validation: Built-in support for common data types and validation rules.
• Scalability and Performance: Optimized for both small and large configuration files.
• Error Handling and Feedback: More informative error messages and debugging support.
• Security: Designed to prevent common security issues found in JSON and YAMLparsers, by use of strict type checking and validation.

• Minimalistic Braces: Use a mix of indentation and minimalistic braces to balance between YAML's readability and JSON's structure.
• Type Annotations: Allow explicit type annotations for values to ensure type safety and validation.
• Comments and Documentation: Support both inline and block comments, and special annotations for documenting sections of the configuration.

TIDE is currently supported in the following languages:

• Go
• Rust

# This is an inline comment
database {
    type: string = "mysql"
    host: string = "localhost"
    port: integer = 3306
    credentials {
        username: string = "user"
        password: string = "pass"
    }
}

myApp {
    features: array[string] = ["feature1", "feature2", "feature3"]
    numbers: array[integer] = [1, 2, 3]
}

If I ever get around to implementing this, I would like to add the following features:

• Versioning and Backward Compatibility: In-built versioning for configuration schemas to ensure backward compatibility.
• Import Statements: Allow importing configurations from other files to support modularity.
• Environment Variable Integration: Native support for environment variable interpolation.
• Schema Definitions: Introduce schema definitions within the configuration file for self-contained validation rules.
• First-class Function Support: Unlike JSON and TOML, support simple functions or lambda expressions for dynamic configurations.
• Built-in Extensions for Common Use Cases: Provide extensions for common configuration scenarios like database connections, API keys, etc.