Prettier Config Generator

Prettier's design goal is to end style debates by being opinionated. Each option that exists was added reluctantly, because consensus on the 'right' default was impossible. The team explicitly resists new options to keep configs portable and reviews predictable across projects. That is why something like 'spaces around keywords' is not configurable — Prettier treats formatting choices as commodity decisions, not personal expression.

'es5' adds trailing commas where ECMAScript 5 allowed them — arrays and objects — but not in function parameters or calls. 'all' also adds them to function parameter lists and call sites, which is valid in ES2017+ and gives cleaner git diffs when arguments are added or removed. 'all' is the current Prettier default and the recommended choice for any project that targets modern JS or transpiles.

Prettier handles formatting; ESLint handles correctness. They overlap on stylistic rules like quotes and semicolons, which causes conflicts where ESLint reports issues that Prettier just rewrites. The fix is eslint-config-prettier — a sharable config that disables every ESLint rule Prettier already controls. Run Prettier first to format, then ESLint to catch bugs. Plugins like eslint-plugin-prettier that run Prettier as a lint rule are no longer recommended because they slow down ESLint and obscure error sources.

'preserve' keeps your existing line breaks untouched. 'always' hard-wraps prose at printWidth so the source is readable in any editor, which works well for documentation repos. 'never' joins wrapped paragraphs into single lines, which is the right choice for files that will be edited by tools or rendered in environments where line breaks would show as separate paragraphs. The default is 'preserve' because Markdown line endings can change semantics in some flavors.

Use JSON when the config is static and shared across the team — it is the simplest, most portable form. Use a JS config when you need to import shared rules from a package, swap options based on an environment variable, derive overrides from glob lists in code, or use TypeScript types via the JSDoc @type import. JS configs are slower to load because Prettier has to execute them, but the cost is invisible at editor save speeds.