CLI flag to disable looking for a configuration file

[felix-hilden]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Given that Black always looks for a configuration file, up to the file system root (!), it could be convenient to be able to explicitly not look for any configuration files. This would be advantageous when debugging different options.

Describe the solution you'd like

$ black --config -
$ black --no-config

Or maybe I've just missed it, didn't look at the code yet. In which case it should be documented in the CLI help.

[ichard26]

I'm in favour of this flag although I'm not sure if --no-config is the best name for it, perhaps --isolated although that could imply ignoring .gitignore files which this feature request doesn't cover ...

[felix-hilden]

--isolated would be fine by me if we truly isolate the run like you described. I thought --no-config would be recognisable as a reference to flag options, for which Click provides a --no-... variant as well. So would you prefer to use some sentinel value like a single dash?

[ichard26]

--no-config is probably best then. I'm not a big fan of the positive case being an option and the negated form being a flag, but that seems minor.

[felix-hilden]

I bet if we made it --config -, someone would present a case where they've named their configuration file exactly that 😄

[JelleZijlstra]

Do other tools (flake8, mypy, prettier, gofmt...) have an option for this? If so, how does it work?

[felix-hilden]

Mypy has --config-file=. I'm not sure if gofmt has any configuration files 😄

[hauntsaninja]

Closing, since I don't think there's a lot of appetite for this feature. Note black --config /dev/null works perfectly well for me on Unix systems.