diff --git a/core/lib/patternlab.js b/core/lib/patternlab.js
index 55ecbb78a..1c28937b2 100644
--- a/core/lib/patternlab.js
+++ b/core/lib/patternlab.js
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ const cleanHtml = require('js-beautify').html;
 const inherits = require('util').inherits;
 const pm = require('./plugin_manager');
 const packageInfo = require('../../package.json');
+const defaultConfig = require('../../patternlab-config.json');
 const dataLoader = require('./data_loader')();
 const logger = require('./log');
 const jsonCopy = require('./json_copy');
@@ -269,7 +270,6 @@ class PatternLab {
 
 
   // info methods
-
   getVersion() {
     return this.package.version;
   }
@@ -422,6 +422,15 @@ function installPlugin(pluginName) {
   plugin_manager.install_plugin(pluginName);
 }
 
+/**
+ * Returns the standardized default config
+ *
+ * @return {object} Returns the object representation of the patternlab-config.json
+ */
+function getDefaultConfig() {
+  return defaultConfig
+}
+
 const patternlab_engine = function (config) {
   const patternlab = new PatternLab(config);
   const paths = patternlab.config.paths;
@@ -730,7 +739,7 @@ const patternlab_engine = function (config) {
     version: function () {
       return patternlab.logVersion();
     },
-
+    
     /**
      * return current version
      *
@@ -869,5 +878,6 @@ const patternlab_engine = function (config) {
 patternlab_engine.build_pattern_data = buildPatternData;
 patternlab_engine.process_all_patterns_iterative = processAllPatternsIterative;
 patternlab_engine.process_all_patterns_recursive = processAllPatternsRecursive;
+patternlab_engine.getDefaultConfig = getDefaultConfig;
 
 module.exports = patternlab_engine;
diff --git a/test/patternlab_tests.js b/test/patternlab_tests.js
index c680058ba..872b8084e 100644
--- a/test/patternlab_tests.js
+++ b/test/patternlab_tests.js
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ const tap = require('tap');
 const rewire = require("rewire");
 const _ = require('lodash');
 const fs = require('fs-extra');
+const defaultConfig = require('../patternlab-config.json');
 var config = require('./util/patternlab-config.json');
 
 var plEngineModule = rewire('../core/lib/patternlab');
@@ -81,3 +82,10 @@ tap.test('buildPatternData - can load json, yaml, and yml files', function(test)
   test.equals(dataResult.from_json, "from_json");
   test.end();
 });
+
+tap.test('getDefaultConfig - should return the default config object', function(test) {
+  const requestedConfig = plEngineModule.getDefaultConfig();
+  test.type(requestedConfig, 'object');
+  test.equals(requestedConfig, defaultConfig);
+  test.end();
+});