Consider deprecating old helpers API

**Problem**
When working with config, the error messages could be more descriptive.

**Suggestion**
Improve error handling and add detailed error messages.

**Context**
This would help with debugging and maintenance.

Start by locating the old helpers API and the config-related error handling in the repository. Determine the intended deprecation behavior and the error cases that need more descriptive messages; done means the old API is addressed and configuration failures provide useful debugging detail.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.