Config content separation

Skill fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall/plugins/devops-process/config-content-separation

284 curated plugins for AI assistants across 16 categories: security, Azure, documentation, code quality, cloud infrastructure, and more. Works with GitHub Copilot. Drop into .github/skills/local/ and go.

Install

npx -y skills add fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall --skill config-content-separation

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

3 stars3 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Mixing structure and content makes both hard to maintain:

SKILL.md

2.4 KB, 524 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Config + Content Separation

The Problem

Mixing structure and content makes both hard to maintain:

// Bad: structure and content interleaved
const menu = [
  { label: 'Home', icon: 'house', content: 'Welcome to our site...' },
  { label: 'About', icon: 'info', content: 'We are a company that...' }
];

Content updates require touching code. Structure changes require editing content.

The Solution

JSON defines structure. Separate files hold content.

// config/menu.json
{
  "items": [
    { "id": "home", "label": "Home", "icon": "house", "contentFile": "home.md" },
    { "id": "about", "label": "About", "icon": "info", "contentFile": "about.md" }
  ]
}

<!-- content/home.md -->
# Welcome

Welcome to our site. We're glad you're here.

// Loader resolves file references at runtime
function loadMenu(configPath, contentDir) {
  const config = require(configPath);
  
  return config.items.map(item => ({
    ...item,
    content: fs.readFileSync(path.join(contentDir, item.contentFile), 'utf8')
  }));
}

Caching Pattern

let cache = null;
let cacheTime = 0;
const CACHE_TTL = 60000; // 1 minute

function getMenu(refresh = false) {
  if (!refresh && cache && Date.now() - cacheTime < CACHE_TTL) {
    return cache;
  }
  
  cache = loadMenu('./config/menu.json', './content');
  cacheTime = Date.now();
  return cache;
}

// Force refresh on explicit request
app.post('/admin/refresh-content', (req, res) => {
  getMenu(true);
  res.json({ status: 'refreshed' });
});

Benefits

Content authors edit markdown, not JSON
Developers edit structure without touching content
Version control diffs are meaningful (content vs structure)
Can hot-reload content without rebuilding

Verification

Change content file → reflected without code change
Change structure → content unchanged
Missing content file → clear error message

When to Apply

CMS-like systems
Documentation sites
Configuration panels
Any mix of structure + prose