In one of the lessons in my [free automated testing in Drupal email course][atdc], I explain how I create configuration that I need within my tests, such as adding a custom field:
> But how do you know what to name the configuration files and what content to put in them?
>
> Rather than trying to write them by hand, I create the configuration I need, such as fields, within a Drupal site and then export and edit the files I need.
As well as creating the fields in the Drupal UI, I was also using it to export the configuration files I needed:
> Once Drupal is installed and the configuration has been created, you can go to - /admin/config/development/configuration/single/export and select the configuration type and name.
>
> The filename is shown at the bottom of the page, and you can copy the content into files within your module.
## There's another way
After reading that lesson, somene replied and reminded me that there's a `--destination` option you can use with the `drush config:export` command.
Instead of exporting to the standard configuration directory, I can do it to a temporary directory:
```language-shell
run drush cex --destination /app/.ignored/config
```
Everyhing in a `.ignored` direcotry is automatically ignored by Git, and to get the files I need, I can use Linux's `find` command to find any files that contain the field name and copy them into my test module directory:
I still need to edit the files to remove the `uuid` and `_core` values, but this approach means less clicking in the Drupal UI which makes me more productive.
I used this approach when [writing my SaaS code yesterday][yesterday] and it worked well.
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