Before Drupal 8, changes in site configuration could only be stored and moved between environments by using the Features module. This practice was less than ideal, as Features was not originally conceived for this purpose. Since there was no other better way to manage configuration outside of the database, this became the standard practice.
Inspired by Features' limitations and the need for a more reliable configuration management process, a Configuration Management Initiative (CMI) was established to devise a solution for Drupal 8 and beyond. The initiative yielded the Configuration Manager module, a UI for exporting and importing configuration changes between environments that is now integrated into D8 core. Now that we have a greater variety of options, let's take a closer look at the best practices for configuration management in D8.