"Now it's time to re-export your configuration in the config sync directory, in order to update the affected YAML files." - How to do?

So I did this in Drush by running drush cex but, as I understand it from the documentation → , I don't think I really needed to do anything at all while my site is only in local development. My sync directory had no yaml files in it. A clarification of that in the "What you need to do" section on the module description would be helpful.

You should still always export config even while in your development environment. The reason for this is because config files should be included in commits and checked in to your code repository. Any config files that contain sensitive data or that you want to exclude could be excluded in your .gitignore file and with Config Ignore → .

Here's a quote from Stack Exchange:

you probably want to move your config folder out of files (you need to update the path in settings.php) and commit it. You shouldn't only have one environment, and config allows you to make changes on one site, export it and import it on production. There are many questions here and documentations about this available.

Thank you very much @solideogloria. Your explanation and links help me a lot. As an independent site builder, I don't actually use Git in my local development, relying instead on regularly backing up my codebase and exporting my database. But I probably should!

Marking this as Closed (works as designed), since the discussion is beyond the scope of Allowed Formats.

Being able to see what changed when is pretty important if you notice errors in log messages. It's hard to know what changed around a certain date if you don't have your commits/changes recorded.