Change was made by @Jdforrester-WMF (pinging).

This change breaks AutoWikiBrowser logins; see T233070.

In T233069#5497922, @Dinoguy1000 wrote:

This change breaks AutoWikiBrowser logins; see T233070.

IMO, AWB shouldn't parse raw configuration - that can change at any time, for any reason, and can't be deemed to be stable.

I'm sad that the commit message does not offer [a link to] a rationale behind this change.

They should be accessible through VarientConfig.php. The plan is to move it to yaml/json and per wiki file (T223602). In general, you should not use this files directly, use api.php sitematrix, sites, js config variables but this file is mostly for internal use only.

In T233069#5498452, @Aklapper wrote:

@Aklapper added a project: Platform Engineering
I'm sad that the commit message does not offer [a link to] a rationale behind this change.

As far as I can tell, CPT had nothing to do with the change or anything else on T223602.

Is this a permanent thing?

No.

In T233069#5498701, @Ladsgroup wrote:

In general, you should not use this files directly, use api.php sitematrix, sites, js config variables but this file is mostly for internal use only.

(FWIW) I will try to refer to API queries in the future when discussing wiki configuration.

Per T223602, this is only a transitional stage. Unless it's easy and worthwhile updating twice in a short period, I think we're better off leaving references as they are. Proposing to decline as such.

I mean, it's temporary that there's a file called VariantSettings and no (useful) file called InitialiseSettings, but it's also (slightly less) temporary that there'd be a file called InitialiseSettings again.