[Garkin]

Originally Posted by Randactyl I've seen this mentioned a couple of times. How does one avoid ZO_SavedVars in the first place?

You can directly access saved variables table defined in manifest (.txt):

## SavedVariables: MyAddon_SavedVariables

local savedVars
local defaults = {
    key1 = "value1",
    key2 = "value2",
}
 
EVENT_MANAGER:RegisterForEvent("MyAddon", EVENT_ADD_ON_LOADED,
    function(event, addon)
        if addon ~= "MyAddon" then return end
        EVENT_MANAGER:UnregisterForEvent("MyAddon", event)
 
        MyAddon_SavedVariables = MyAddon_SavedVariables or defaults
        savedVars = MyAddon_SavedVariables
    end)

As an example check Wykkyd's or Seerah's addons.