NVME-CLI.CONF(5)

💅 nvme-cli.conf — the nvme-cli global option defaults file format 🎀

okay so bestie, welcome to nvme-cli.conf(5), aka the little config file that runs the whole vibe of your nvme setup ✨

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

/usr/local/etc/nvme/nvme-cli.conf

like, that's it. that's the path. it's iconic and it does not move 💅

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So this is an INI-format file that sets machine-wide defaults for the global options that literally every nvme subcommand accepts (peep GLOBAL OPTIONS in nvme(1) for the full rundown). The classic example? You're lowkey tired of typing --no-ioctl-probing on every single invocation, so you just... set it here once. slay 🫶

Here's the tea on how it gets read:

• It's read once, and that happens before command-line parsing.
• It only sets defaults — an explicit command-line flag always overrides whatever this file set. ALWAYS. no cap 👑
• A missing file is not an error; it just changes nothing. no file, no drama 🦋
• A file that can't be read is an error: nvme reports it and fails. so like, don't do that 😭
• The file holds no secrets and must be readable by every user, because nvme may read it after dropping its root privileges. highkey important, don't forget 💀

Also heads up: there is no --config override and no drop-in directory for this file. It always lives at that path up there. periodt.

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✨ SECTIONS ✨

There's exactly one recognized section, bestie, and it's [Global].

• Keys outside [Global] — including in an unrecognized section — get ignored with a warning. respectfully, they're not in the group chat 💅
• Boolean values accept 1/yes/y/true/t/on and 0/no/n/false/f/off (case-insensitive). so flexible, we love her 🌈
• Unknown keys and malformed values are ignored with a warning — they do not stop the rest of the file from being applied. she keeps going, main character energy 💜

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🎀 KEYS 🎀

Every key here is the same name as its nvme long option (hyphenated, obviously). Wanna know what each one actually means? Go read GLOBAL OPTIONS in nvme(1), iykyk 📖

• verbose
• quiet
• output-format
• timeout
• dry-run
• no-retries
• no-ioctl-probing
• output-format-version
• set-options

One thing you gotta know ngl: verbose takes the desired verbosity level directly — so verbose = 2 is equivalent to -vv — instead of the increment-per-flag behavior of -v on the command line. different mechanic, same slay ⭐

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🦋 EXAMPLE 🦋

# /usr/local/etc/nvme/nvme-cli.conf

[Global]
no-ioctl-probing = true
output-format = json
timeout = 5000

look at her go 😭💖 json output, no ioctl probing, 5000ms timeout — a whole aesthetic.

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• nvme(1)

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🌸 NVME 🌸

Part of the nvme-user suite 💫

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and that's the whole page, bestie — signing off from the NVMe manual, dated 10/30/2026, filed under NVME-CLI.CONF(5). go forth and configure responsibly 🧚💜