site.config['url'] should be respected regardless of environment

[miklb]

• I believe this to be a bug, not a question about using Jekyll.
• I updated to the latest Jekyll (or) if on GitHub Pages to the latest github-pages
• I read the CONTRIBUTION file at https://jekyllrb.com/docs/contributing/
• This is a feature request.

---

• I am on (or have tested on) _macOS_ 10+
• I am on (or have tested on) _Debian/Ubuntu_ GNU/Linux
• I am on (or have tested on) _Fedora_ GNU/Linux
• I am on (or have tested on) _Arch_ GNU/Linux
• I am on (or have tested on) _Other_ GNU/Linux
• I am on (or have tested on) _Windows_ 10+

---

• I was trying to install.
• There is a broken Plugin API.
• I had an error on GitHub Pages, and I have reproduced it locally.
• I had an error on GitHub Pages, and GitHub Support said it was a Jekyll Bug.
• I had an error on GitHub Pages and I did not test it locally.
• I was trying to build.
• It was another bug.

My Reproduction Steps

I am using a plugin that stores all links in a post in a .cache file under source, the url of the post containing them for further processing. Specifically, the plugin uses site.config['url'] & the permalink. In 3.3, this breaks, writing http://localhost:4000 instead of the value in config.

The Output I Wanted

Respect the value of the config file.

[Crunch09]

Hi, have you tried to set your JEKYLL_ENV to a different value?

[miklb]

bundle exec jekyll serve JEKYLL_ENV=production dd not work. My point is, there should be a way to read the explicitly set value in config regardless of the environment.

[miklb]

To be clear, I never had any issue serving my site locally with that value set prior to 3.3 release.

[pathawks]

JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll serve

Can you explain your issue a bit more? I'm not sure I understand.

[miklb]

My issue is that I don't understand why you can't read the explicitly set value of config and it not be hijacked, regardless of environment. While never had a problem with site.url being set to my domain in my config and serving locally, I sorta understand the change. But I don't understand why there isn't a way to get the raw value. Hijacking user set config values seems like a very slippery slope and I would love to see the discussion on the decision to do so.

To clarify, the plugin will always want the domain url for that cache file.

[Crunch09]

You are still able to set a local url via the host and port options (and if you want ssl stuff). As described here those values are for local server hostname and local server port.
A config like this:

host: jekyll.local
port: 4444
url: https://example.com

Would give you http://jekyll.local:4444 in your development environment and https://example.com in any other environment for site.url.

[miklb]

So to be clear, serving locally, the only way to read the url config setting is to set a JEKYLL_ENV to something other than development? I personally find that a horrible solution.

[pathawks]

Ok, I was more trying to understand your workflow to see if there were a better way to go about things.

I guess the bottom line is that Jekyll is working as intended, and this is not a bug.

[suprafly]

I agree with @miklb - this is really unintuitive. I spent a good deal of time debugging this behaviour as well. I would expect the variable to return the data that is contained there, not to coerce it into something that it believes is more accurate.

[DirtyF]

Jekyll lives by the 80% rule, default behavior is documented here:
https://jekyllrb.com/docs/usage/#override-default-development-settings