---
title: "Settings and preferences"
date: "2024-02-14T06:18:38+00:00"
summary: "Customize your Cloud IDE experience with easy-to-use settings and preferences. Learn how to edit, track, and version control your workspace configurations for a tailored development environment."
image:
type: "page"
url: "/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/cloud-ide/settings-and-preferences"
id: "cda105dc-f329-4538-a307-17ffcb786000"
---

Cloud IDE is a modern and flexible platform that can be fully customized to suit your development needs.

Table of contents will be added

Editing preferences
-------------------

To edit your preferences, including your Cloud IDE user or workspace settings:

1.  Visit your IDE from the [Cloud Platform user interface](/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/ide/start#ide-setup) or by running the following Acquia CLI command in your terminal:
    
        acli ide:open
    
    Note
    
    You might be requested to [Sign in to the Cloud Platform user interface](https://cloud.acquia.com)
    
2.  After you are redirected to your IDE, click **File > Preferences** > **Open Settings**.
3.  Identify the section containing the setting that you want to edit, and then click the section header to display all possible values.
4.  Change the desired setting.
    
    The following screen shows an example setting:
    
    ![Editing preferences for Composer on Cloud IDE](https://acquia.widen.net/content/hiptvvqc2n/png/ide_editing-preferences.png?crop=false&position=w&color=ffffffff&u=0b06mk&w=584&h=374)
    
    Note
    
    *   User preferences exist in the `~/.theia/settings.json` file. Do not change this file as Acquia can overwrite it with new features and values.
    *   Workspace preferences exist in the `~/project/.theia/settings.json` file after you perform a change. This file has precedence over User preferences and includes custom settings.
    
    Usually, Cloud IDE immediately uses your updated preferences. However, for certain preferences, you might need to reload the full page.
    

Tracking Cloud IDE preferences under version control
----------------------------------------------------

By design, Cloud IDEs are disposable. As such, you might want to delete an IDE or have multiple IDEs in parallel, and carry forward your preferences without having to configure new IDEs from scratch.

When the `~/project/.theia/settings.json` file is available, it’s easy to add it to version control and track changes as part of your Cloud Platform application.

To track your Workspace `settings.json` file:

1.  Verify that the `.theia` directory is currently not tracked under version control.
    
        ide:~/project (master) $ git status
        On branch master
        Untracked files:
          (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
                .theia/
        
        nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
        
    
2.  Add the `.theia` directory to your Git repository and verify that the changes are ready to be committed.
    
        ide:~/project (master) $ git add .theia/ && git status
        On branch master
        Changes to be committed:
          (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage)
                new file:   .theia/settings.json
        
    
3.  Commit your changes.
    
        ide:~/project (master +) $ git commit -m "Add Cloud IDE settings"
        [master 6ff6acb] Add Cloud IDE settings
         1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
         create mode 100644 .theia/settings.json
        
    
4.  Push your changes to Git.
    
        ide:~/project (master +) $ $ git push
        Enumerating objects: 4, done.
        Counting objects: 100% (4/4), done.
        Delta compression using up to 16 threads
        Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
        Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 1.74 KiB | 1.74 MiB/s, done.
        Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
        remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), completed with 1 local object.
        To github.com:user/repository.git
           c015078..312fbea  master -> master
    

Using the simpleSAMLphp authentication module with Cloud IDE
------------------------------------------------------------

To use the [simpleSAMLphp authentication module](https://www.drupal.org/project/simplesamlphp_auth) with Cloud IDE, include the temporary file path in the `config.php` file: 

    $config['tempdir'] = $_ENV['TEMP'];