Maybe you had this problem too: you shared a project with somebody, only to realize that your carefully crafted debug configuration was not shared?

Eclipse has the concept to store settings in the ‘framework’. The ‘framework’ is the Eclipse internal data, basically what is inside the .metadata folder of the workspace.

metadata folder in workspace

If I create a debug configuration for a project, then by default Eclipse stores it in the ‘framework’ (workspace data). This means that the debug configuration is *not* stored in the project settings: If I zip that project or share it with a version control system, then the debug configuration is *not* shared. In order to share the debug configuration, it needs to be stored in a physical file.

Sharing Debug Configuration File

For this, I need to enable ‘Shared file’ in the ‘Common’ tab of the debug configuration:

Shared Debug Configuration

If I have multiple debug connections for my project, then the settings for each are stored in a separate .launch file:

Launch Configuration Files in Project

If now I share the project, and that project gets opened with the .launch files, then the debug configurations will show up. 

Summary

To share debug (or launch) configurations with my project, then I need to enable ‘Shared file’ in the configuration: that way the configuration gets stored in a file inside the project.

Happy Sharing