The SDK could have a command line tool (or option) to dump the config in JSON format, if that config is meant to be consumed by other tools. I can come up with

The SDK could have a command line tool (or option) to dump the config in JSON format, if that config is meant to be consumed by other tools. I can come up with examples where config files are a bad idea all day long. Bottom line is neither is a silver bullet, and there are always trade-offs to be made.