Convert defaultConfig.yaml to JSON in source

[Ethan-Arrowood]

Feature Summary

Harder than either #24 or #25 , but similar motivations. This is file is resolved a lot throughout our system, particularly in the configUtils.ts.

The general idea is while we can still stick to yaml for actual configuration files, there is no reason it needs to be used for defaults or even in-memory config management. YAML and JSON are very easy to swap between.

Problem This Solves

Ref #16, similar to #24 and #25, one less path resolution and file I/O operation. Out of the three static assets, this likely has the biggest performance impact due to how often we read the file.

Proposed Solution

At a minimum, we should remove this file and replace it with JSON object somewhere in the source. During installation, we just have to transform the JSON to yaml and write the output. Any other ops, such as config utils reading the default value of a given config option, can just do a direct object lookup with the JSON instead!

User Stories

No response

Alternatives Considered

No response

Priority/Impact

Low - nice to have

Examples or References

No response

Additional Context

No response

Are you planning to fix this issue?

No, just reporting the issue

First-time contributor support

• I'm new to contributing and would appreciate guidance on the process
• I'd like help understanding the project structure
• I need assistance with setting up the development environment
• I'm comfortable contributing, but new to this project specifically

[kriszyp]

This is a great plan. However, I do think there is a lot of value in being able to include/retain comments in our YAML files, this is a significant benefit that YAML offers. Comments can help document the different parts of the configuration, guiding users to understand the configuration file. And I believe we have put some effort into retaining comments when configuration is (programmatically) updated.