If you want to test that you worker role can recycle correctly when the configuration settings are changed, it’s possible to do so on your local developer machine, if you do the following.
First you role can’t be running with debugger attached since it will put the role in an endless recycle.
When the debugger is not attached, simply write
csrun /update:[DEPLOYMENTID];ServiceConfiguration.Local.cscfg where DeploymentID is the ID of your role instance from the compute emulator that you want to apply the new configuration to.