Chapter 31: Advanced Configuration

Once RecipeVault grows, split configuration by concern.

from pydantic import AnyUrl
from pydantic_settings import BaseSettings


class DatabaseSettings(BaseSettings):
    url: str
    echo_sql: bool = False


class SecuritySettings(BaseSettings):
    secret_key: str
    access_token_minutes: int = 15
    cookie_secure: bool = True


class Settings(BaseSettings):
    database: DatabaseSettings
    security: SecuritySettings

Advanced configuration practices:

• Validate settings at startup.
• Use typed URLs and constrained values where useful.
• Avoid global mutable settings.
• Keep test settings explicit.
• Separate public config from secrets.
• Document required environment variables.

In .NET, options validation is a named feature. In Python, your settings model is the validation layer.