Multiple local configs is not explained clearly

[sebastienbarre]

Issue Category

Undocumented feature or missing documentation

Affected Documentation Page URL

https://docs.continue.dev/guides/understanding-configs

Issue Description

The documentation mentions “Local Configs” in the plural form several times, but it’s unclear how to actually set up multiple local configs.

Consider the following scenario:

• I want to create a local config named “Offline Config” that sets all my models to use local instances available through LM Studio (e.g., Qwen).
• I also want to create a local config named “Online Config” that sets all my models to use cloud-based options such as Codestral or Claude.

This would allow me to easily switch between the two without having to manually choose a model for each autocomplete, chat, or edit category.

At the moment, however, there appears to be only one local config: ~/.continue/config.yaml, which can’t be given a specific display "name" — it's always "Local Config" (see #8483).

I tried manually creating ~/.continue/offline-config.yaml with a different "name" property, but it wasn’t picked by the UI when I reloaded the configs (or restarted VS Code) — only config.yaml was.

Next, I tried using “Add Config” which does create a new config, but inside the current VS Code workspace (for example, monorepo/.continue/agents/new-config.yaml). This didn’t make much sense to me — why would I commit my API keys to a repo shared by multiple people?

Still, that gave me a clue: new configs might need to be placed under an agents subdirectory in my user directory. I tested this by creating ~/.continue/agents/offline-config.yaml and ~/.continue/agents/online-config.yaml. That worked, but this behavior really should be documented, if I may suggest. Better yet, the “Add Config” button should offer the choice to create a new user-level local config, not just a workspace-level one.

Then I tried removing ~/.continue/config.yaml to clean things up, but it’s automatically recreated each time I start VS Code, which is unfortunate. I also tried renaming it by changing the "name" property to “DO NOT USE Config”, but that name can’t be changed either (see #8483).

To summarize:

• It is possible to have multiple local configs, but the documentation needs to clarify how.
• The UI should provide an option to create both user and workspace local configs.
• It should be possible to hide or rename the default config entirely.

Thanks.

Expected Content

No response

[ItachiSan]

Hi, I was thinking to create a ticket about this exactly.
So, with ~/.continue/agents/<CONFIG>.yaml I can have and switch between multiple configs, correct?

[sebastienbarre]

This is correct yes, at least at the time I created this issue.

[ItachiSan]

I will verify also then 😄
But I agree with the pain. Right now, creating a config via the VSCode extension creates a local (project) configuration and not a global (~/.continue) one...

[ttait1]

Also the extra configs created in the GUI can't be removed in the GUI, you have find them and delete in your file explorer/manager. It's not super obvious to a newbie that + will make these files.