Configuration

PCPM has three levels of configuration, in increasing order of precedence:

1. Workspace pcpm.json — committed to your repo. Shared with the team.
2. Environment variables — for machine-local overrides.
3. CLI flags — for one-off invocations.

pcpm.json

A typical pcpm.json looks like this:

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "store": {
    "path": null,
    "auto": true
  },
  "feeds": [
    {
      "name": "nuget.org",
      "url": "https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json"
    }
  ],
  "updateCheck": true,
  "lockfile": {
    "floating": "pin"
  }
}

Schema

Field	Type	Default	What it does
version	string	"1.0"	Schema version. Bumped on breaking changes.
store.path	string | null	null (auto-detect)	Override the store location.
store.auto	boolean	true	Let PCPM choose the store location.
feeds	FeedConfig[]	[nuget.org]	NuGet feeds to query.
feeds[].name	string	required	Display name.
feeds[].url	string	required	NuGet v3 index URL.
feeds[].credentials	object?	null	Optional auth (see below).
updateCheck	boolean	true	Check for newer PCPM versions on install.
lockfile.floating	"pin"|"follow"	"pin"	How to resolve floating version ranges.
dotnet	string?	null	Path to the dotnet executable.
msbuild	object?	null	MSBuild integration options.

Feed authentication

For private feeds, set credentials per feed:

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "name": "private",
      "url": "https://pkgs.contoso.com/v3/index.json",
      "credentials": {
        "username": "ci-bot",
        "tokenEnv": "PCPM_FEED_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  ]
}

tokenEnv is the name of an environment variable that holds the token. The token is read at runtime; it is never written to pcpm.json or to the lockfile.

Environment variables

Variable	Equivalent in pcpm.json	Notes
PCPM_STORE_PATH	store.path	Override the store location.
PCPM_FEED_TOKEN	per-feed credentials.tokenEnv	Default token env name.
PCPM_DOTNET_PATH	dotnet	Path to the dotnet binary.
PCPM_NO_UPDATE_CHECK	updateCheck: false	Set to 1 to disable.
PCPM_LOG_LEVEL	(none)	quiet, normal, verbose.
PCPM_COLOR	(none)	auto, always, never.

CLI flags

Most commands support a small set of one-off flags:

Flag	Effect
--no-color	Disable ANSI colour output.
--quiet / -q	Suppress non-error output.
--verbose / -v	Print every resolver decision.
--cwd <path>	Run as if pcpm was invoked from <path>.
--config <path>	Use a different pcpm.json file.

Per-project overrides

For most workspaces, pcpm.json is enough. For unusual layouts — e.g. a single repo that contains two workspaces — you can put a pcpm.json in any subdirectory. PCPM walks up from the current working directory until it finds one.

Validation

pcpm config validate checks your pcpm.json against the schema and reports any issues. Run it after a hand edit.

Migrating from an older version

When PCPM’s pcpm.json schema changes, the migration is automatic: on pcpm install, the loader upgrades your file in place. If the upgrade is non-trivial (a field was removed, the shape changed), the loader writes a .bak first and prints a warning. Read the warning, commit the new file, push.