Disable telemetry by default in Varbase CI, DDEV and site templates (DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY=0)

Problem/Motivation

Drupal CMS now sends anonymous install analytics (Drupal CMS Helper, with an opt-in tracker on the Dashboard after a fresh install). It skips GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, CircleCI and Tugboat by environment variable, but not local DDEV or Bitbucket Pipelines.

So every automated test round of Varbase and its site templates on DDEV adds to the install counts, and our CI and local builds should not send telemetry to servers we do not control. Storybook already runs with --disable-telemetry in the Varbase Project package.json.

Two switches turn it off:

• Environment variable DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY=0, set before install. It is read only when a site template (Site recipe) is applied by the installer.
• $settings['drupal_cms_telemetry'] = FALSE; in settings.php. A kill switch that cannot be overridden, and the only one that covers a plain drush site:install varbase.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Varbase Starter (or Educare, Horizon Aid, The Rightup) on a local DDEV site.
2. Log in and open the Dashboard: the telemetry opt-in shows.
3. Run ddev drush state:get drupal_cms_telemetry: empty, so telemetry is on by default.

Proposed resolution

One issue-fork MR per row below, on this issue, each with only what that project ships:

• CI: DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY: "0" under variables: in the .gitlab-ci.yml of every row, so every job gets it, including the install and Automated Functional Testing (varbase-e2e) jobs. The site templates already run drush state:set drupal_cms_telemetry false after install; keep that, the variable covers the install itself.
• DDEV: DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY=0 in web_environment of .ddev/config.yaml where the project ships one.
• settings.php: the $settings['drupal_cms_telemetry'] = FALSE; line where a CI job writes settings.
• Docs: one line in README or AGENTS install steps on how to opt out.

Child issues, one per project, where each project's MRs go (Varbase itself is on this issue):

• Varbase Project (varbase_project), 11.0.x: #3633827
• Varbase Starter (varbase_starter), 1.0.x: #3633828
• Educare (educare), 1.0.x: #3633829
• Horizon Aid (horizonaid), 1.0.x: #3633830
• The Rightup (rightup), 1.0.x: #3633832
• Vartheme BS5 (vartheme_bs5), 5.0.x, 4.1.x: #3633833
• Vartheme BS5 Educare (vartheme_bs5_educare), 1.0.x: #3633834
• Vartheme BS5 Horizon Aid (vartheme_bs5_horizonaid), 1.0.x: #3633836
• Varbase Content Base (varbase_content_base), 1.0.x: #3633837
• Varbase Events Base (varbase_events_base), 1.0.x: #3633838
• Varbase News Base (varbase_news_base), 1.0.x: #3633839
• Varbase Podcasts Base (varbase_podcasts_base), 1.0.x, 2.0.x: #3633840
• Varbase Search Base (varbase_search_base), 1.0.x: #3633841
• Varbase AI (varbase_ai), 2.0.x: #3633842
• Varbase AI Base (varbase_ai_base), 1.0.x: #3633843
• Varbase AI Answers Base (varbase_ai_answers_base), 1.0.x: #3633844
• Varbase AI Chatbot Base (varbase_ai_chatbot_base), 1.0.x: #3633845
• Varbase AI Content Operations Base (varbase_ai_content_operations_base), 1.0.x: #3633846
• Varbase AI Content Review Base (varbase_ai_content_review_base), 1.0.x: #3633847
• Varbase AI Context (varbase_ai_context), 1.0.x: #3633848
• Varbase AI Editor Assistant (varbase_ai_editor_assistant), 2.0.x: #3633850
• Varbase AI Figma (varbase_ai_figma), 1.0.x: #3633851
• Varbase AI Figma Base (varbase_ai_figma_base), 1.0.x: #3633852
• Varbase AI Image Alt (varbase_ai_image_alt), 2.0.x: #3633853
• Varbase AI MCP Server Base (varbase_ai_mcp_server_base), 1.0.x: #3633855
• Varbase AI Media Base (varbase_ai_media_base), 1.0.x: #3633857
• Varbase AI Readable Base (varbase_ai_readable_base), 1.0.x: #3633858
• Varbase AI Safety (varbase_ai_safety), 1.0.x: #3633860
• Varbase AI Search Base (varbase_ai_search_base), 1.0.x: #3633861
• Varbase AI SEO (varbase_ai_seo), 1.0.x: #3633862
• Varbase AI Taxonomy Tagging (varbase_ai_taxonomy_tagging), 2.0.x: #3633863
• Varbase AI VDB: MariaDB (varbase_ai_vdb_mariadb), 1.0.x: #3633865
• Varbase AI VDB: Milvus (varbase_ai_vdb_milvus), 1.0.x: #3633866

The CI-only rows added later (Vartheme BS5 The Rightup, the other Varbase base recipes, Varbase AI Agents, Varbase AI Default 2.0.x and the 1.0.x branches of Varbase AI Editor Assistant, Image Alt and Taxonomy Tagging) have no child issue yet.

Varbase AI Default 1.0.x has no .gitlab-ci.yml and is skipped. Site templates get MRs only, no releases.

Audit: other telemetry in local DDEV and GitLab CI, added to the same MRs where it is safe:

• Storybook: --disable-telemetry or STORYBOOK_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1
• Next.js: NEXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1; Nuxt: NUXT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1
• Yarn: YARN_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=0; Turborepo: TURBO_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1; general: DO_NOT_TRACK=1
• Cypress: CYPRESS_CRASH_REPORTS=0
• DDEV: ddev config global --instrumentation-opt-in=false or DDEV_NO_INSTRUMENTATION=true
• Playwright, Composer, Drush, npm: no usage telemetry known; confirm while auditing.

Docs: a Varbase docs page (separate docs issue and PR on Vardot/varbase-docs) on disabling telemetry in projects on Bitbucket Pipelines, which Drupal CMS does not detect as CI, and GitHub Actions:

• GitHub Actions, workflow or job env:: DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY: "0"
• Bitbucket Pipelines, a repository variable DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY = 0, or in the step script: export DRUPAL_CMS_TELEMETRY=0

Remaining tasks

• ✅ File an issue
• ❌ Addition/Change/Update/Fix
• ❌ Testing to ensure no regression
• ➖ Automated unit/functional testing coverage
• ❌ Developer Documentation support
• ❌ User Guide Documentation support
• ➖ UX/UI designer responsibilities
• ➖ Accessibility and Readability
• ❌ Reviewed by a human
• ❌ Code review by maintainers
• ❌ Full testing and approval
• ❌ Credit contributors
• ❌ Review with the product owner
• ❌ Update Release Notes
• ❌ Release

User interface changes

• N/A

API changes

• N/A

Data model changes

• N/A

Release notes snippet

• N/A

AI-Generated: Yes