The default varfile format was changed to YAML in 0.13 see https://docs.garden.io/reference/project-config#varfile However the default varfile that does not need to be specified via the varfile config option, still needs to be garden.env and not garden.yaml which suggests it is in .env format. We explicitly say in our docs that the file extension determines the format. The behaviour right now is that garden.env works with .env content and yaml content. I think we can either change the documentation to reflect that or change the default varfile to reflect the yaml extension e.g. gardenvars.yaml Wdyt?

I like the suggestion

<filename>.gvars.yaml

similar to terraform's

<filename>.tfvars.json

for eg. However I'm concerned by the fact that its an extra step for me as a dev ; since tools like docker-compose can seamlessly read my

.env

file

That is the default behaviour for garden too, it also reads your .env file without further configuration. However we changed the default format for that one to yaml and now it is a file with an .env extension that contains yaml..slightly confusing