How to handle config changes on core update?

Question

I have an 8.6.15 site managed by composer and drush. The db and config exports are in sync.

Roling our new features using drush cim on production works fine.

I now update core to 8.7 by running copmoser update and drush updb successfully, and everything seems to be working as expected.

The update process causes configuration differences between the db and the exported config files

My question: What is the proper way of handling these config changes?

1) drush updb -> drush cex (seems logical to me)

2) drush updb -> drush cim -> drush cex

The two strategies result in slightly different end configurations.

Answer 1

Schema updates in different versions of core and contrib which cause changes to the config will cause an issue where your config becomes outdated.

On your local environment, run:

drush updb
drush cex

Then you can commit and push your configuration, and on your target (i.e. production, or stage, etc) environment, run:

drush updb
drush cim

Failure to do so will cause hard-to-diagnose issues in some case. More info and examples at:

• Update hooks which modify configuration can lead to unstable sites; figure out how to deal with this.