IMO: there should be explicit error path for invalid configuration, so the program would abort with specific exit code and/or message. And there should be a superviser which would detect this behaviour, rollback old working config and wait for few minutes before trying to apply new config again (of course with corresponding alerts).
So basically bad config should be explicitly processed and handled by rolling back to known working config.
So basically bad config should be explicitly processed and handled by rolling back to known working config.