Mercurial reads configuration data from several files, if they exist.
Below we list the most specific file first.

On Windows, these configuration files are read:

- ``<repo>\.hg\hgrc``
- ``%USERPROFILE%\.hgrc``
- ``%USERPROFILE%\Mercurial.ini``
- ``%HOME%\.hgrc``
- ``%HOME%\Mercurial.ini``
- ``C:\Mercurial\Mercurial.ini``
- ``HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercurial``
- ``<install-dir>\Mercurial.ini``

On Unix, these files are read:

- ``<repo>/.hg/hgrc``
- ``$HOME/.hgrc``
- ``/etc/mercurial/hgrc``
- ``/etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc``
- ``<install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc``
- ``<install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc``

The configuration files for Mercurial use a simple ini-file format. A
configuration file consists of sections, led by a ``[section]`` header
and followed by ``name = value`` entries::

  [ui]
  username = Firstname Lastname <firstname.lastname@example.net>
  verbose = True

This above entries will be referred to as ``ui.username`` and
``ui.verbose``, respectively. Please see the hgrc man page for a full
description of the possible configuration values:

- on Unix-like systems: ``man hgrc``
- online: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/hgrc.5.html