Improve config performance

**Description**
Currently utils lacks proper filtering support.

**Proposed solution**
Add configurable filtering with sensible defaults.

**Priority**: Low/Medium

Start by locating the utils code responsible for configuration filtering; the issue does not name a file, entry point, or test. Read the existing configuration behavior and identify how filtering defaults should be specified, then verify that configurable filtering works without regressing performance.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.