Drupal configuration is normally changed or removed through the configuration import and export process. For example, the process I follow is to make the change in the configuration locally, export the configuration into the source code, deploy the source code to a remote server and import the configuration. Using this mechanism, configuration changes that were exported locally are imported into the site and are ready to use.

There are certain situations where using update hooks to update the configuration is necessary. This means that you would change the configuration in your system directly using code in update hooks, rather than following the export and import process. These situations are rare, but necessary from time to time in order to maintain a consistent configuration on your site.

Key to all of this is to always run your update hooks before performing your configuration import. This is important rule to follow as the Drupal update process can alter or tweak the fields and tables that contain Drupal configuration entities. Then, when importing the Drupal configuration the data structure is in the correct state and is ready to accept the changes.

Let’s look at a few of the situations that you might encounter and how to approach each of them using update hooks.

Updating Configuration Splits

If you are using configuration splits to manage your different environments then you will encounter an issue where you import your configuration and then realise you need to import the configuration again.

Read more.