Even pre-LLM this is how suckless tools work, I actually don’t much mind having to edit a variable in a header and recompile when you make a config change.

https://dwm.suckless.org/customisation/

Suckless software does have config files they just have a “.h” extension

Having your config file be a c header and needing a recompile is different than not having any user accessible configuration

Only for trivial programs - I don't mind running make on a 2500 line C program, I would mind having to recompile LLVM or Firefox.

Which is why many of us happily ignore their existence.