Nested configs

A dbx.config.* in a non-root folder (a workspace, an app, a nested project) is merged over the nearest ancestor dbx.config.* found while walking up to the repository root (the walk stops at the .git boundary, so it never picks up a config from outside the repo).

The merge is recursive:

• Objects are merged key by key, so a child keeps every option it does not mention.
• Leaves — booleans, strings, numbers and arrays — in the child replace the root's value (arrays are not concatenated).
• Repository-scoped sections are not inherited: ci, catalogs and the top-level changelog, tsconfig, vite.test and vite.run. A workflow, workspace tsconfig tree, test config or task list describes the repository or one workspace, so a child starts without the parent's values for them. In particular, the root tsconfig task already expands every workspace tsconfig.json; inheriting it into each workspace would only re-scan that subtree.

Everything else is shared unless the child overrides it — vite.fmt, vite.lint, vite.plugins, logger, biome, templates, registry, and so on — so lint/format settings are cohesive across a monorepo by default.

<root>/dbx.config.ts

export default defineConfig({
    toolchain: {
        logger: { level: 'debug', color: false },
        vite: {
            fmt: { printWidth: 100, singleQuote: true },
        },
    },
});

// <root>/packages/web/dbx.config.ts — inherits `vite.fmt`, tweaks `logger`
export default defineConfig({
    toolchain: {
        logger: { level: 'warn' }, // leaf overrides the root's level
        vite: {
            run: { tasks: { build: { command: 'tsdown' } } }, // not inherited
        },
    },
});

The workspace above ends up with logger: { level: 'warn', color: false } and the root's vite.fmt settings. Its vite.run holds only the build task it declares — the root's tasks are not merged in.

Arrays replace, so repeat what you need. If a workspace sets vite.fmt.ignorePatterns, that array replaces the root's list (it is not appended). Either keep the root patterns in the workspace array, or put the shared pattern on the root config — for example **/vite.config.ts there covers every workspace's generated shim.

project is inherited except its identity fields. name, scope, description and type are per-project, so a non-root config keeps its own (or falls back to its package.json) and is still detected from its own files — a root project never renames a workspace. The shared fields (author, license, homepage, repo, packageManager, ...) flow down so their package.json values and replacement tokens stay shared. project: { inherit: false } disables project inheritance entirely. hooks are not inherited either — a parent's hooks are code and do not run for a nested project's sync.