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Configuration Internals
This document describes the maintainer-facing configuration boundary in internal/core/config. The Configuration reference owns the file format, fields, defaults, precedence contract, and selectable keys. The CLI reference owns command syntax; this document does not redefine either interface.
Boundary
The configuration package turns a selected YAML file and supported environment values into a validated, independently owned configuration. It then resolves a requested pipeline against a module catalog before the framework prepares or runs anything.
| Boundary | Inputs | Outputs | Does not own |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading | Selected file path and environment lookup | Parsed file model and a populated Config | Choosing the file path or reporting a command result. |
| Validation | Config | Structural configuration errors with pipeline, lane, or binding context | Module availability, capabilities, or construction. |
| Resolution | Valid Config, selected pipeline and lanes, runtime reference changes, LLM override, and module catalog | EffectiveConfig with a ResolvedPipeline | Materializing reference bytes, preparing modules, execution, or filesystem state. |
| Summary | Config or EffectiveConfig | Detached redacted payload suitable for debug summaries | Redacting arbitrary process state or provider traffic. |
The CLI discovers a configuration file, invokes this package, and supplies the result to the framework. Configuration never reads an input file, constructs a module, or creates output, cache, or debug paths. Those responsibilities remain at their respective CLI, pipeline, and run-state boundaries.
Loading And Validation
The CLI loads configuration in this order:
- parse the selected YAML file strictly into the file model;
- start from Default;
- apply the file model; and
- apply the supported environment overrides.
This establishes the public precedence order without giving environment input a
second file schema. Loading and application reject malformed YAML, unsupported
file versions, unknown fields, invalid values, and identifiers that are empty
or collide after whitespace normalization. The file application also makes the
effective extraction-worker default follow the effective LLM limit. A present
PromptKit local-backend object requires and trims its endpoint, defaults its
omitted concurrency limit to zero, and is copied so the parsed file model
cannot alias the populated Config. A pipeline llm_profile is
presence-aware: omission remains empty, while a present blank value is
rejected and a non-empty file value is trimmed before it reaches Config.
Config.Validate checks configuration-only invariants before resolution. It rejects incompatible profile sources, invalid state-surface values, unsupported concurrency settings, malformed bindings and references, invalid retries, and invalid pipeline, step, or lane structure. PromptKit local-backend validation accepts only an absolute HTTP or HTTPS endpoint with a host and no user information, query, or fragment, and rejects a negative local concurrency limit. Its errors retain the closest known pipeline, lane, and binding context. It deliberately does not require modules to be registered: that requires a catalog and belongs to resolution.
The exact user-selectable values and validation rules are defined in Configuration. Keep additions to the file model, an environment override, its validation, and that reference in the same change.
Effective Resolution
Config.Resolve first recomputes derived concurrency defaults and validates the configuration. It normalizes the requested pipeline ID, copies the selected profile, and passes the non-empty command-level LLM profile override, requested lane selection, and reference changes to the framework resolver.
After module and validator selection, the resolver applies the effective profile policy to LLM-backed bindings only: command override, binding profile, pipeline profile, then the prompt default. Deterministic bindings remain profile-free, and no second inheritance decision occurs during execution. The public field definitions and precedence are owned by Configuration.
The framework resolver supplies defaults, selects lanes, resolves validator chains, checks registered module and artifact compatibility, validates module options, and returns the fixed ordered pipeline shape. The resulting EffectiveConfig retains the selected ID, requested selection and reference changes, a clone of the input configuration, and the resolved pipeline. Callers may therefore retain or modify their input slices and maps without changing the resolved result, and later consumers cannot mutate the original configuration through the effective value. This ownership includes the nested PromptKit local-backend value.
Resolution failures stop before module construction and source parsing. They include an error path for an unconfigured pipeline, missing module, missing capability, incompatible artifact variant, invalid option, invalid reference, or invalid lane selection. CLI code maps these valid-invocation failures to the runtime error class described in the CLI reference.
Resolved Identity And Redaction
The framework assigns the resolved pipeline a deterministic SHA-256 digest after defaults, lane selection, module bindings, reference bindings, validator chains, effective LLM profiles, and artifact schema identity have been resolved. The digest excludes its own stored value. It identifies resolved composition rather than raw YAML bytes, a debug payload, or all runtime state. The CLI records it as invocation provenance before execution; cache and checkpoint identity have additional owners in Run State Internals.
Configuration summaries must use Redacted, RedactedSummaryPayload, or RedactedResolvedPipelinePayload, never a direct configuration marshal. Those methods copy every binding and nested option container, replace values whose key is credential-shaped with [REDACTED], and omit materialized reference content while retaining safe binding and reference provenance. The payload must not alias the source configuration or resolved pipeline. PromptKit's local endpoint and concurrency limit are preserved as non-secret configuration metadata in the independently owned summary; the object contains no credential value. This redaction is deliberately narrow: it protects configuration summaries and does not authorize recording arbitrary environment values or provider requests.
Invariants To Preserve
- Defaults, YAML values, and environment values are applied in one direction; later sources may override only their supported operational settings.
- A configuration is structurally valid before it is resolved, and a resolved pipeline is compatible with the supplied catalog before preparation begins.
- Whitespace-normalized identifiers are unique wherever they identify a pipeline, step, lane, worker, or reference slot.
- Resolution and summary generation return detached data. Redaction must cover every configured and resolved binding, including nested validator bindings.
- The resolved digest changes when resolved composition changes and never includes itself.
Focused Tests
- internal/core/config/file_config_contract_test.go covers strict file parsing, normalization, file application, and structural rejection.
- internal/core/config/env_contract_test.go covers supported operational overrides and their precedence.
- internal/core/config/validation_contract_test.go covers configuration invariants and contextual failures.
- internal/core/config/effective_config_contract_test.go covers defaults, selections, overrides, resolution context, digest changes, and ownership.
- internal/core/config/redaction_test.go covers recursive credential redaction, reference-content exclusion, and non-aliasing payloads.
Run go test ./internal/core/config after changing this boundary. Changes to the handoff or resolved-composition semantics also need the focused framework pipeline tests.