bot-bottle/docs/prds/0025-bottle-extends.md

# PRD 0025: Bottle composition via `extends:`

- **Status:** Active
- **Author:** didericis
- **Created:** 2026-05-27
- **Issue:** #88

## Summary

Let a bottle inherit from another bottle by name. A bottle frontmatter
gains an optional `extends: <bottle-name>` field; at manifest-load
time the parent's resolved config is the base and the child's
declared fields overlay it. Bottles remain home-only — the trust
boundary the README documents stays intact.

Solves the "I don't want to duplicate a 50-line bottle just to add
one egress route or env var" pain that motivated issue #88's
`bottle_config` proposal, without weakening the agent-vs-bottle
trust separation that proposal would have eroded.

## Problem

Today the only way to vary a bottle's config is to write a whole
new `bottles/<name>.md`. If `staging` is the same as `dev` but with
one extra egress route, the operator copy-pastes the entire `dev`
file. Drift between copies follows: an egress addition to `dev` is
silently absent from `staging` until someone notices.

Issue #88 proposed inlining a `bottle_config:` block in agent files
that would merge with (and override) the referenced bottle. That
design lets a `$CWD/.bot-bottle/agents/<name>.md` file from a
cloned repo redeclare egress routes, env mappings, and git remotes
— breaking the existing security model where bottles are
`$HOME`-only specifically so cloned repos can't influence them
(see README, "Manifest" section).

`extends:` solves the same composition pain *within the existing
trust boundary*: only `$HOME` bottles can declare it, only `$HOME`
bottles can be its target. Cloned repos still cannot author
bottle-equivalent config.

## Goals / Success Criteria

- Add `extends: <bottle-name>` to the bottle frontmatter schema.
- At manifest load, resolve `extends:` chains into a fully-merged
  effective config before the rest of the pipeline sees the
  `Bottle` object. Downstream code (provisioners, compose
  renderer, etc.) is unchanged.
- Defined, simple merge semantics (see "Merge rules" below).
- Cycle detection: `A extends B extends A` dies at parse with a
  clear pointer.
- Missing parent dies at parse with a clear pointer + the list of
  available bottle names.
- Existing bottles continue to parse identically — `extends:` is
  opt-in.
- Backend-agnostic: docker + smolmachines behave the same because
  they both consume `Bottle` after the merge.

## Non-goals

- **No agent-side `bottle_config:`.** That's the design issue #88
  considered and weighed against; this PRD is the alternative
  picked in the issue's design discussion. Don't reintroduce it.
- **No additive list merges** (e.g., `routes: append` keyword).
  The `extends:` design uses full-replace for list-valued fields
  (see "Merge rules"); if a use case shows up that genuinely
  needs `parent_routes + child_routes`, design that separately
  rather than baking it in now.
- **No multi-parent inheritance.** A bottle has at most one
  parent. Diamond resolution is out of scope and rarely worth
  the complexity for a manifest of this size.
- **No agent-level extends.** Agents stay simple (bottle ref +
  skills + prompt). Inheritance lives only on the bottle side.

## Design

### Schema

A new optional top-level frontmatter key on bottle files:

```yaml
---
extends: dev

egress:
  routes:
    - host: staging.example.com
      auth:
        scheme: Bearer
        token_ref: STAGING_TOKEN
---
```

`extends:` is a string — the name of another bottle (without the
`.md`). Required to be one of the bottles loaded from
`$HOME/.bot-bottle/bottles/`. Self-reference (`extends: self`
in `self.md`) and longer cycles die at parse.

### Merge rules

Resolution walks `extends:` chains bottom-up: parent's
already-resolved config is the base, child's declared fields
overlay it. For each field on `Bottle`:

| Field        | Type                  | Merge                                       |
|--------------|-----------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| `env`        | `Mapping[str, str]`   | dict merge, child wins on key collision     |
| `git.user`   | `GitUser`             | child overlay: child's non-empty fields win |
| `git.remotes`| `tuple[GitEntry,…]`   | dict merge by host, child wins              |
| `egress`     | `EgressConfig`        | full replace if child declares `egress:`    |
| `supervise`  | `bool`                | full replace if child declares `supervise:` |

Why full-replace for `egress.routes[]`:

- **Ordering matters.** Egress route ordering is part of the
  match semantics (first matching host wins). Merging two
  ordered lists by name introduces "where does the child's route
  go?" ambiguity.
- **Simpler precedence.** "Child declares X → X wins, full
  stop" is one sentence; partial merges need a table per list.

The `env` dict is the one exception because dict-merge has no
ordering concern and dict-keyed overrides are the obvious user
expectation. (Same model as shell `export` precedence.)

`git.remotes` is also keyed, so it follows dict-style inheritance:
children can override one host without restating every remote. The
remote entry is replaced as a whole on host collision because
`Upstream`, `IdentityFile`, `KnownHostKey`, and `ExtraHosts` are
tightly coupled.

The `git.user` dataclass-overlay (each non-empty field wins
individually) is so a parent can declare `git.user.name` and a
child can add just `git.user.email`. The default `GitUser()`
fields are empty strings, which are treated as "not set" for
overlay purposes — same `is_empty()` predicate the provisioner
uses.

### Resolution algorithm

```
bottles_raw: dict[name, raw_frontmatter_dict]   # before parsing

def resolve(name, seen=()) -> Bottle:
    if name in seen:
        die(f"bottle '{name}' extends-cycle: {' -> '.join(seen + (name,))}")
    raw = bottles_raw[name]
    parent_name = raw.get("extends")
    if parent_name is None:
        return Bottle.from_dict(name, raw)  # leaf
    if parent_name not in bottles_raw:
        die(f"bottle '{name}' extends '{parent_name}' which is not defined; "
            f"available: {sorted(bottles_raw)}")
    parent = resolve(parent_name, seen + (name,))
    return _merge(parent, raw, name)
```

Resolution is cached per-name within a single `Manifest.from_*`
call so a diamond-like reference graph (multiple children
extending the same parent) doesn't reparse the parent N times.
Cycles are caught by the `seen` set; the error message includes
the full chain so operators can find the offending file.

### Trust boundary preservation

Bottles continue to be loaded from `$HOME/.bot-bottle/bottles/`
only (`Manifest.from_md_dirs` is unchanged). The `extends:` field
references another file in that same directory. No cwd-readable
file gains the ability to declare or modify bottle config — the
attack surface from issue #88's comment thread stays closed.

If a future change ever introduces cwd-loaded bottles, the
`extends:` resolver should be gated to forbid a `$CWD` bottle
from extending a `$HOME` bottle (lest cwd-loaded config inherit
home-resident credentials via the merge step). Today this is
moot because there's only one bottle source.

## Implementation chunks

1. **PRD (this commit).** Sets the design.
2. **Resolver + schema + tests.**
   - Add `"extends"` to `_BOTTLE_KEYS`.
   - Add `extends: str = ""` to a new pre-merge raw shape (or
     keep raw dicts and resolve as a separate pass before
     `Bottle.from_dict`).
   - Implement `_resolve_bottle_with_extends` recursive walk
     with cycle detection.
   - Wire into `_load_bottles_from_dir` so the public
     `Manifest.bottles` dict already contains resolved Bottle
     instances (downstream code unchanged).
   - Implement `_merge(parent: Bottle, child_raw: dict, name: str)
     -> Bottle` with the rules table above.
   - Unit tests: simple two-bottle extends, env merge with
     collision, host-keyed git remote merge, egress list-replace, git.user overlay,
     supervise override, missing parent dies, cycle dies, deeper
     chains (A extends B extends C).
3. **Docs.** Add an `extends:` example to the README's manifest
   section. Note that the field is optional + how merge precedes.

## Testing strategy

- **Unit (must):** all the merge semantics, the parse-time
  errors (cycle, missing parent), and a multi-step inheritance
  chain locking the resolver's recursion.
- **No integration changes needed:** downstream code consumes
  the already-merged `Bottle`. Existing integration tests cover
  the docker / smolmachines provisioning paths and would catch
  any regression in how `Bottle.git`, `Bottle.egress`, etc., are
  consumed.

## Open questions

- **Should the parent appear in the preflight summary?** Right
  now the y/N preflight prints the resolved bottle config; with
  `extends:` the operator doesn't see *which* fields came from
  which level. A short `extends:` annotation in the preflight
  output ("inherits from `dev`") would let the operator spot
  surprises. Cheap follow-up; out of scope for this PRD.
- **Should `cli.py info <agent>` show the resolution chain?**
  Same shape as the preflight question — useful diagnostic
  surface, doesn't change the runtime. Out of scope.