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Why not a .conf file like everything in /etc or postgresql.conf?

These proposed editions are per connection.

A system-wide config file in /etc that changes defaults for every program would break any program that assumes the old defaults.

It also wouldn't solve the problem of having to manually find out what the current recommended defaults are. With editions, you can simply enable the latest one and know you've got the right defaults.

I should have been more clear, I meant a sqlite.conf can configure a program rather than have it apply globally. For example, a config file placed in same directory as its .wal file to tune it for specific instances. That way you don’t need to lookup what “editions” apply which pragmas or settings. With sqlite.conf you can tune your specific database connections by uncommenting the default settings to enable current features/best practices

SQLite isn't typically a global one-per-system database, and even if it was how would that solve this problem? The problem isn't that you can't set all these settings to the right values - it's that they don't have the right values by default.

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