@cubicecho/agent-core 4.11.0 → 4.13.0

package/README.md

@@ -30,11 +30,11 @@ only, Node >=22.
 | `side-task` | One-shot calls that support a run without being one — small prompt, short answer, no tools, never worth failing the run over. `askJson` holds the answer to a schema where the server can, and `taskCall` turns the settings an agent spec gives a task into the call that honours them. |
 | `hooks` | The host's side of lifecycle hooks: `gather` before a request and `notify` after, the shared context budget, `withContext` to put what they add on the turn's question, `untrusted` to fence text nobody vouched for, and `turnMessages` to hand them a transcript. Running a hook is a runner the caller passes. |
 | `events` | The in-memory bus a watcher reads while a run happens: `emit`, `watch`, `history`, `fold`, and `runMetrics` for what a run cost. A watcher's backlog is capped and reports its own gaps. |
-| `client` | A pooled `OpenAI` client per endpoint, plus the context window: the served one where a local server says, the listed one otherwise, and their caches. And `resolveApiKey`, for a caller deciding which key an endpoint gets. |
+| `client` | A pooled `OpenAI` client per endpoint, plus the context window: the served one where a local server says, the listed one otherwise, and their caches. And `resolveApiKey`, for a caller deciding which key an endpoint gets, and `probeEndpoint`, for listing one a form has not saved yet. |
 | `retry` | What to do when a request is lost, refused or too big: `isTransient`, `isModelLoading`, `backoffMs`, `ContextOverflow`, `EndpointSilent`. |
 | `calibration` | How many characters a token is worth on one model, learned from the prompt counts its endpoint reports: `charsPerTokenFor`, `calibrate`. |
 | `continuation` | `continueTurn`: carries on an answer the token ceiling cut off, by prefilling it as a trailing assistant message. |
-| `config` | The structural interfaces every function here asks for. |
+| `config` | The structural interfaces every function here asks for, and `normalizeBaseUrl`, the one rule for when two base URLs are one endpoint. |
 | `run-turn` | `runTurn`: one turn with the retry loop around the negotiation around the stream. The whole loop, for a caller that wants it rather than its parts. Sizes the request against an opt-in `contextLimit`. |
 | `agent-loop` | `runAgentLoop`: the loop above a turn — `runTurn` per step, the tools between, `load_tools` and preselection handled, until the model stops asking. |
 | `request-body` | `buildBody`: the one place a streamed request's body is decided from a config and what the endpoint and the model have refused. |
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ only, Node >=22.
 | `compaction` | Keeping a long run inside its window: `pruneToolResults` clears stale tool results, `planCompaction` and `compactTranscript` fold the oldest stretch into a summary. |
 | `ledger` | What stretches of a transcript cost, read off the prompt counts the server reported rather than estimated: `recordRequest`, `tokensBetween`, `estimateFrom`, `rebaseLedger`. |
 | `snapshot` | `exportCapabilities` and `importCapabilities`: the latched refusals as a JSON blob a consumer stores, so a restart need not learn them again. |
-| `spec` | `parseSpec`, `resolveAgentSpec` and `exportSpec`: an agent as a versioned JSON document, layered into the flat config the loop takes. Imports nothing but types, and is published separately at `@cubicecho/agent-core/spec`. |
+| `spec` | `parseSpec`, `resolveAgentSpec` and `exportSpec`: an agent as a versioned JSON document, layered into the flat config the loop takes. Imports nothing but types, and is published separately at `@cubicecho/agent-core/spec`. `defineSpecColumns` maps a stored row onto a layer and back, at `@cubicecho/agent-core/spec/columns`. |
 | `reset` | `resetAll`: drops every cache and latch in one call, so a teardown cannot forget one. |
 | `runtime` | `createRuntime`: a second set of those caches, with the functions that use them as methods — for a host whose tenants must not share a client pool, a latch or an event bus. `defaultRuntime` is the one the top-level functions use. |
 | `tokens` | How big a request is, estimated: `estimateTokens` — characters over four, deliberately low — and what is built on it for everything here that has to guess at a window: `messageTokens`, `requestTokens`, `contextTokens`. |
@@ -306,7 +306,7 @@ const turn = await runTurn(client, supports, build, {
 
 `contextLimitFor` answers the operator's number when there is one. Otherwise it reads the
 `/v1/models` listing first. A window at the top of the model's entry (`context_length`,
-`max_context_window`, `max_model_len`, `context_window` or `n_ctx`: vLLM's `max_model_len`,
+`max_context_length`, `max_context_window`, `max_model_len`, `context_window` or `n_ctx`: vLLM's `max_model_len`,
 OpenRouter's `context_length`) is taken as the one being served, and nothing else is asked.
 
 Where the listing does not settle it, the server's own API is asked (`servedWindow`): llama.cpp's
@@ -316,7 +316,10 @@ listed with only `meta.n_ctx_train`, which is llama.cpp. The trained window diff
 one in the case the guard exists for, a 256k model started at `-c 16384`, so it is used only when
 neither native route gives a number. A server with neither route is latched and not asked again.
 `/api/v0/models` is also dropped on its own: for the life of the process once it answers 404, 405
-or 501, and for `listingMissMs` after any other error.
+or 501, and for `listingMissMs` after any other error. A 200 that is not JSON counts as a missing
+route: it is what a proxy with a web app of its own (llm-router) answers on every path it does not
+route. Neither route is sent `NO_KEY` as a bearer; an endpoint with no key is asked with no
+`Authorization` header at all.
 
 A host that sizes the window before each run passes the run's signal as the third argument, so a
 stopped run does not wait on the lookup:
@@ -335,6 +338,33 @@ nothing would otherwise hold the lookup for that long, or for ever where there i
 bound `contextLimitFor` answers zero, as it does for a server it could not reach, and
 `listModels` rejects with a `TimeoutError`.
 
+### Listing an endpoint that is not saved yet
+
+`listModels` is for an endpoint that is configured: it pools a client per URL and remembers what
+came back. A settings form asking at each keystroke would leave a client behind for every
+half-typed URL, so it asks `probeEndpoint` instead, which makes one plain request and remembers
+nothing:
+
+```ts
+import { EndpointProbeError, ProbeFailure, probeEndpoint } from "@cubicecho/agent-core";
+
+try {
+  const models = await probeEndpoint({ baseUrl: typed, apiKey: typedKey }, { signal });
+} catch (error) {
+  if (error instanceof EndpointProbeError) {
+    // error.kind: invalid-url, unreachable, timeout, unauthorized, redirected, not-openai, failed.
+    // error.message is a sentence naming the endpoint by its origin, fit to show under the field.
+    return { problem: error.message };
+  }
+  throw error; // the signal's own reason
+}
+```
+
+It refuses a URL `normalizeBaseUrl` refuses before asking anybody, follows no redirect (so a typed
+key is never carried on to a host nobody typed), reads both OpenAI's `{ data: [...] }` and
+Ollama's native `{ models: [...] }` (by `name` where an entry has no `id`), and hands back each id
+once, sorted, at most `limit` of them (500 unless told). It is bounded as a lookup is.
+
 A top-level listing key is trusted without a second opinion, so on a server that puts a trained
 window there, pass `contextLength`. Ollama reports no window on any route this reads, and truncates
 an over-long prompt rather than refusing it, so on Ollama pass `contextLength` or there is no guard
@@ -909,6 +939,12 @@ it encodes is the conservative one: an endpoint's own key wins; one that names a
 own, different from the settings it inherits from, gets `NO_KEY` rather than the operator's key or
 `$OPENAI_API_KEY`; anything else inherits.
 
+"Different" is decided by `normalizeBaseUrl`, the same rule `endpointKey` and every cache here
+compares by: http or https, no credentials, query or fragment, scheme and host in lower case, no
+default port and no trailing slash. A host storing a base URL should store what it returns, and
+refuse a URL it answers `null` for. A URL it refuses still equals itself, trimmed of whitespace
+and trailing slashes, so a row saved before the rule still finds its own key.
+
 ## Fields this interface cannot spell
 
 `ModelParams` has `temperature`, `maxTokens` and `reasoningEffort`. Everything else a model card or
@@ -1364,6 +1400,50 @@ a form can load it. Nothing in `src/` imports it — the same direction the conf
 what lets a document travel between hosts without the loop growing an opinion about where an agent
 comes from.
 
+### From a row, and back
+
+A document has one spelling of "inherit" — the field is absent — and a database row cannot leave a
+column out, so every host stores a marker instead: `""` for a text column, `-1` where zero is a real
+answer, the word `inherit` in an enum, `null` in a nullable one. `defineSpecColumns` is the table
+from those columns to the fields they feed, with each column's marker a parameter, so the projection
+is declared once rather than written out in both directions:
+
+```ts
+import { defineSpecColumns } from "@cubicecho/agent-core/spec/columns";
+
+const profile = defineSpecColumns<Agent>(
+  {
+    model: { path: "model.model", inherit: "" },
+    maxTokens: { path: "model.maxTokens", inherit: -1 },
+    temperature: { path: "model.temperature", inherit: null },
+    toolDiscovery: { path: "tools.discovery", inherit: "inherit" },
+    systemPrompt: { path: "prompt.system", inherit: "" },
+    compactionModel: { path: "tasks.compaction.model", inherit: "" },
+    toolExecution: { path: ["extensions", "com.example.host", "toolExecution"], inherit: "inherit" },
+  },
+  { handled: ["bundle", "tools.servers"] },
+);
+
+resolveAgentSpec([settings.toLayer(settingsRow), profile.toLayer(agentRow)]); // markers say nothing
+const row = profile.fromLayer(spec);   // an absent field comes back as its column's marker
+const lost = profile.dropped(spec);    // [{ path: "model.extraBody", value: {...} }, ...]
+```
+
+The table is keyed by column, so a column the row does not have, a marker of the wrong type and a
+path the format has no field at are all type errors. A column with no `inherit` says every value it
+holds, which is a host's bottom layer; `null` and `undefined` are absent whatever the marker. A
+column that stores something other than its field — a switch for a discovery mode — converts with
+`toSpec` and `fromSpec`, and either returning `undefined` says nothing: that is how a marker that
+is a range (a trimmed blank, any negative) is spelled, and how a column refuses a value it cannot
+hold. `prompt.<id>` is one part's text; an extension's reverse-domain key has dots of its own, so
+its path is written as segments.
+
+`dropped` is the import preview's list: what a document says that `fromLayer` will not keep, in the
+document's order, and never silently. A field with no column is reported at its path, a task or
+extension with nothing mapped in it whole, and a value a column's `fromSpec` refused carries that
+column's name. What the host reads by hand — a bundle, `tools.servers` resolved to its own row ids —
+goes in `handled` and is left out.
+
 ### Its side tasks
 
 `tasks.<key>` configures a side task apart from the main model — its own model, endpoint, ceiling,
@@ -1473,7 +1553,7 @@ call returns everything in force. Lowering `maxClients` below the pool's current
 it at once, least recently used first. `resetClients` (and `resetAll`) puts the defaults back.
 
 A host that keeps per-endpoint state of its own should key it on `endpointKey` — the JSON of the base
-URL and the key, an absent key read as `NO_KEY` — rather than rebuilding that string, so the two
+URL as `normalizeBaseUrl` writes it and the key, an absent key read as `NO_KEY` — rather than rebuilding that string, so the two
 cannot drift. `endpointKey` holds the key in the clear; `endpointId`, its SHA-256 digest, is the one
 that is safe to write down.
 

package/dist/core/config.d.ts

@@ -57,11 +57,44 @@ export interface Endpoint {
  * not in it, since a different patience is not a different server.
  */
 export interface EndpointIdentity {
-    /** The base URL as given. Compared as written, so a trailing slash is another endpoint. */
+    /**
+     * The base URL as given. Compared as `baseUrlKey` has it, so a trailing slash, a host's case and
+     * a default port are the same endpoint, and a path's case and a `/v1` are not.
+     */
     baseUrl: string;
     /** Absent and empty mean the same: no key, which `endpointKey` reads as `NO_KEY`. */
     apiKey?: string;
 }
+/**
+ * A base URL worth storing: http or https, no credentials, query or fragment, no trailing slash.
+ *
+ * @param raw - The URL as typed. Surrounding whitespace is trimmed.
+ * @returns The URL as the WHATWG parser writes it, less its trailing slashes — scheme and host in
+ * lower case, a default port dropped — or `null` for anything that is not such a URL.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * One rule for every host, because "a stored key only goes to its own endpoint" is decided by
+ * comparing two of these, and four hosts writing four rules had begun to disagree about it. A key
+ * in the URL is a credential nobody meant to store; a query or a fragment is one more thing two
+ * copies of the same endpoint could differ in, and the SDK appends its paths after it.
+ *
+ * A host that stores a base URL stores this, and a form that refuses one refuses on `null`, so what
+ * is saved is already in the form every comparison here reads.
+ */
+export declare function normalizeBaseUrl(raw: string): string | null;
+/**
+ * A base URL in the form two of them are compared in, valid or not.
+ *
+ * @param raw - The URL as configured.
+ * @returns `normalizeBaseUrl`'s answer where it has one, and otherwise the URL trimmed of
+ * whitespace and trailing slashes, which is the rule every comparison here used before.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * A URL the normaliser refuses is still somebody's endpoint — an old settings row, a key written
+ * into the URL — and it still has to equal itself, so it falls back to the older, looser rule
+ * rather than to "unequal to everything".
+ */
+export declare const baseUrlKey: (raw: string) => string;
 /**
  * The request fields `extraBody` may not set, because the loop's request is built around them.
  *

package/dist/core/config.js

@@ -11,6 +11,51 @@
  * it structurally. Nothing imports a config *type* from a consumer, and no consumer has to grow
  * a field it has no use for in order to call `getClient`.
  */
+/**
+ * A base URL worth storing: http or https, no credentials, query or fragment, no trailing slash.
+ *
+ * @param raw - The URL as typed. Surrounding whitespace is trimmed.
+ * @returns The URL as the WHATWG parser writes it, less its trailing slashes — scheme and host in
+ * lower case, a default port dropped — or `null` for anything that is not such a URL.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * One rule for every host, because "a stored key only goes to its own endpoint" is decided by
+ * comparing two of these, and four hosts writing four rules had begun to disagree about it. A key
+ * in the URL is a credential nobody meant to store; a query or a fragment is one more thing two
+ * copies of the same endpoint could differ in, and the SDK appends its paths after it.
+ *
+ * A host that stores a base URL stores this, and a form that refuses one refuses on `null`, so what
+ * is saved is already in the form every comparison here reads.
+ */
+export function normalizeBaseUrl(raw) {
+    let url;
+    try {
+        url = new URL(raw.trim());
+    }
+    catch {
+        return null;
+    }
+    if (url.protocol !== 'http:' && url.protocol !== 'https:') {
+        return null;
+    }
+    if (url.username || url.password || url.search || url.hash) {
+        return null;
+    }
+    return url.toString().replace(/\/+$/, '');
+}
+/**
+ * A base URL in the form two of them are compared in, valid or not.
+ *
+ * @param raw - The URL as configured.
+ * @returns `normalizeBaseUrl`'s answer where it has one, and otherwise the URL trimmed of
+ * whitespace and trailing slashes, which is the rule every comparison here used before.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * A URL the normaliser refuses is still somebody's endpoint — an old settings row, a key written
+ * into the URL — and it still has to equal itself, so it falls back to the older, looser rule
+ * rather than to "unequal to everything".
+ */
+export const baseUrlKey = (raw) => normalizeBaseUrl(raw) ?? raw.trim().replace(/\/+$/, '');
 /**
  * The request fields `extraBody` may not set, because the loop's request is built around them.
  *

package/dist/endpoint/client.d.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import OpenAI from 'openai';
-import type { Endpoint, EndpointIdentity, RetryPolicy } from '../core/config.ts';
+import { type Endpoint, type EndpointIdentity, type RetryPolicy } from '../core/config.ts';
 /**
  * The SDK insists on a non-empty key even where the server will not look at it. This is what it
  * gets. It also reads as "this endpoint has no key" at a call site, which an empty string does
@@ -112,13 +112,15 @@ export interface ModelInfo {
  * `Endpoint` requires it — `capabilitiesFor` is handed a URL and maybe a key rather than a whole
  * config, and absent and empty already mean the same thing. The timeout is deliberately not in
  * it; see `listings`.
- * @returns The URL and the key as one JSON string, the key in the clear.
+ * @returns The URL as `baseUrlKey` writes it and the key, as one JSON string, the key in the clear.
  *
  * @remarks
  * The URL and the key together, because the key is part of what is on the other end rather than
  * only how it is paid for: a router is free to send two keys to two different backends, and then
  * what one of them refused is not a fact about the other. Absent reads as `NO_KEY`, so an
- * endpoint with no key and one that passes `undefined` are one entry rather than two.
+ * endpoint with no key and one that passes `undefined` are one entry rather than two. The URL is
+ * normalised for the same reason: `…/v1/` and `…/v1` are one server, and two entries for it would
+ * learn every refusal twice.
  *
  * Stringified rather than joined on a separator, for the reason `getClient` gives: no character
  * is impossible in a URL or a key, and two endpoints must never collide on one entry. A host
@@ -207,6 +209,72 @@ export declare function servedSlots(config: Endpoint & {
  * request's own error otherwise.
  */
 export declare function listModels(config: Endpoint, { signal }?: LookupOptions): Promise<ModelInfo[]>;
+/** Why `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models, in words a form can branch on. */
+export declare const ProbeFailure: {
+    /** Not an http or https URL, or one with credentials, a query or a fragment in it. */
+    readonly InvalidUrl: 'invalid-url';
+    /** Nothing answered: no such host, a refused connection, a TLS failure. */
+    readonly Unreachable: 'unreachable';
+    /** Something answered, but not inside the lookup's bound. */
+    readonly Timeout: 'timeout';
+    /** A 401 or a 403: the key is wrong, or one is needed. */
+    readonly Unauthorized: 'unauthorized';
+    /** A redirect, which is not followed, so the key is never carried to a host nobody typed. */
+    readonly Redirected: 'redirected';
+    /** An answer that is not a model listing: no such route, a web page, JSON of another shape. */
+    readonly NotOpenAi: 'not-openai';
+    /** Any other error status, which is on the error as `status`. */
+    readonly Failed: 'failed';
+};
+export type ProbeFailure = (typeof ProbeFailure)[keyof typeof ProbeFailure];
+/**
+ * `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models; `kind` says why.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * The message is a sentence for a person, naming the endpoint by its origin only, so it can go
+ * under a form field as it is. `kind` is for a form that words it itself.
+ */
+export declare class EndpointProbeError extends Error {
+    readonly name: string;
+    readonly kind: ProbeFailure;
+    /** The HTTP status, where the endpoint answered with one. */
+    readonly status?: number;
+    /**
+     * @param kind - Why the listing failed.
+     * @param message - The same, as a sentence.
+     * @param [status] - The status the endpoint answered with, where it answered.
+     */
+    constructor(kind: ProbeFailure, message: string, status?: number);
+}
+/** What `probeEndpoint` takes besides the endpoint. */
+export interface ProbeOptions extends LookupOptions {
+    /** How many models come back at most, the first by id. Defaults to `PROBE_MODEL_LIMIT`. */
+    limit?: number;
+}
+/**
+ * Asks an endpoint nobody has saved yet which models it serves, for a form a person is typing it
+ * into.
+ *
+ * @param endpoint - The endpoint as typed. Its key goes as a bearer token where it has one other
+ * than `NO_KEY`; its `requestTimeoutSeconds` bounds the request where that is shorter than
+ * `lookupTimeoutMs`.
+ * @param [options] - Cancellation, and how many models to hand back. See `ProbeOptions`.
+ * @returns The models in order of id, one entry per id, at most `options.limit` of them. Rejects
+ * with the reason of `options.signal` where that stopped it, and with an `EndpointProbeError`
+ * for every other failure.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * `listModels` is for an endpoint that is configured: it pools a client per URL and remembers the
+ * listing, and a form asking at every keystroke would leave a client and a listing behind for
+ * each half-typed URL. This makes one plain request and remembers nothing, so asking again asks
+ * again.
+ *
+ * Redirects are not followed, so a typed key is never carried on to a host nobody typed. Both
+ * listing shapes are read: OpenAI's `{ data: [...] }` by `id`, and Ollama's native
+ * `{ models: [...] }` by `name` where an entry has no `id`. A window is read from the keys
+ * `contextLimitFor` reads, and an id listed twice keeps the window one of its entries stated.
+ */
+export declare function probeEndpoint(endpoint: EndpointIdentity & Pick<Endpoint, 'requestTimeoutSeconds'>, { signal, limit }?: ProbeOptions): Promise<ModelInfo[]>;
 /**
  * How much a model will read, in tokens. Zero means nobody knows.
  *
@@ -245,12 +313,12 @@ export declare function contextLimitFor(config: Endpoint & {
  */
 export declare function resetClients(): void;
 /**
- * A base URL as two settings rows would agree on it: trimmed, without the trailing slash.
+ * Whether two base URLs are one endpoint, by `baseUrlKey`.
  *
  * @param a - The URL as one row has it.
  * @param b - The URL as the other has it.
- * @returns `true` where the two differ in nothing but surrounding whitespace and trailing slashes.
- * Case counts, and so does a `/v1`.
+ * @returns `true` where the two differ in nothing but surrounding whitespace, trailing slashes, the
+ * case of the scheme and host, and a default port. A path's case counts, and so does a `/v1`.
  */
 export declare const sameUrl: (a: string, b: string) => boolean;
 /**

package/dist/endpoint/client.js

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import OpenAI from 'openai';
+import { baseUrlKey, normalizeBaseUrl, } from '../core/config.js';
 import { digestOf } from '../core/digest.js';
 import { byCodeUnit, isPositive } from '../core/guards.js';
 import { MS_PER_SECOND } from '../core/platform.js';
@@ -192,7 +193,14 @@ export function getClient(config) {
  * reporting the same number twice. llama.cpp puts its number under `meta` instead, and LM Studio
  * and Ollama put none on this route at all; see `servedWindow`.
  */
-const CONTEXT_KEYS = ['context_length', 'max_context_window', 'max_model_len', 'context_window', 'n_ctx'];
+const CONTEXT_KEYS = [
+    'context_length',
+    'max_context_length',
+    'max_context_window',
+    'max_model_len',
+    'context_window',
+    'n_ctx',
+];
 /**
  * A number above zero as itself and anything else as zero, which here means "not stated".
  *
@@ -276,20 +284,22 @@ const misses = scoped(() => new Map());
  * `Endpoint` requires it — `capabilitiesFor` is handed a URL and maybe a key rather than a whole
  * config, and absent and empty already mean the same thing. The timeout is deliberately not in
  * it; see `listings`.
- * @returns The URL and the key as one JSON string, the key in the clear.
+ * @returns The URL as `baseUrlKey` writes it and the key, as one JSON string, the key in the clear.
  *
  * @remarks
  * The URL and the key together, because the key is part of what is on the other end rather than
  * only how it is paid for: a router is free to send two keys to two different backends, and then
  * what one of them refused is not a fact about the other. Absent reads as `NO_KEY`, so an
- * endpoint with no key and one that passes `undefined` are one entry rather than two.
+ * endpoint with no key and one that passes `undefined` are one entry rather than two. The URL is
+ * normalised for the same reason: `…/v1/` and `…/v1` are one server, and two entries for it would
+ * learn every refusal twice.
  *
  * Stringified rather than joined on a separator, for the reason `getClient` gives: no character
  * is impossible in a URL or a key, and two endpoints must never collide on one entry. A host
  * keeping its own per-endpoint state keys it on this rather than on a copy of it, so the two
  * cannot drift apart. It holds the key in the clear; `endpointId` is the one to write down.
  */
-export const endpointKey = (config) => JSON.stringify([config.baseUrl, config.apiKey || NO_KEY]);
+export const endpointKey = (config) => JSON.stringify([baseUrlKey(config.baseUrl), config.apiKey || NO_KEY]);
 /**
  * One model on one endpoint, as every per-model cache keys it: stringified, so neither half runs
  * into the other.
@@ -402,23 +412,39 @@ const NOT_THERE = new Set([
     HttpStatus.MethodNotAllowed,
     HttpStatus.NotImplemented,
 ]);
+/**
+ * The headers that carry an endpoint's key, and none where it has none.
+ *
+ * @param apiKey - The key as configured. Empty, absent and `NO_KEY` all mean there is none.
+ * @returns A bearer `authorization` header, or no headers at all.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * `NO_KEY` is the SDK's placeholder, not a credential, and a request made outside the SDK has no
+ * reason to send it: a server that checks keys refuses `Bearer agent-core` as it refuses a wrong
+ * one, where it might have answered an unauthenticated route.
+ */
+const authHeaders = (apiKey) => apiKey && apiKey !== NO_KEY ? { authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}` } : {};
 /**
  * Asks one native endpoint.
  *
- * @param config - The endpoint. Its key goes as a bearer token where it has one.
+ * @param config - The endpoint. Its key goes as a bearer token where it has one other than `NO_KEY`.
  * @param path - The route and its query, from the server root rather than from the base URL.
  * @param within - The lookup's signal. Fired, the request throws as an unreachable server does.
  * @returns How the server answered, with `body` only for a 2xx that parsed as JSON.
  *
  * @remarks
- * `failed` is any answer that was not a 2xx and `missing` the ones among them that mean a server
- * without the route; `body` is absent for both, and for a 2xx that was not JSON. A server that
- * could not be reached throws.
+ * `failed` is any answer that was not a 2xx, or was not JSON, and `missing` the ones among them
+ * that mean a server without the route; `body` is absent for all of them. A server that could not
+ * be reached throws.
+ *
+ * A 2xx that is not JSON is a missing route rather than a route with nothing to say. It is what a
+ * proxy with a web app of its own answers on every path it does not route — llm-router serves its
+ * `index.html` for `/props` with a 200 — and read as "no window" it was asked again every
+ * `listingMissMs` instead of being latched as a server without the route.
  */
 async function probe(config, path, within) {
-    const apiKey = config.apiKey || undefined;
     const response = await fetch(`${rootOf(config.baseUrl)}${path}`, {
-        headers: apiKey ? { authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}` } : {},
+        headers: authHeaders(config.apiKey),
         signal: within,
     });
     if (!response.ok) {
@@ -428,7 +454,9 @@ async function probe(config, path, within) {
         return { failed: false, missing: false, body: await response.json() };
     }
     catch {
-        return { failed: false, missing: false };
+        // A fired signal surfaces here too, mid-body, and is a server that stopped answering.
+        within.throwIfAborted();
+        return { failed: true, missing: true };
     }
 }
 /**
@@ -594,6 +622,144 @@ async function readListing(config, within) {
     trainedOnly().set(key, trained);
     return models;
 }
+/** Why `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models, in words a form can branch on. */
+export const ProbeFailure = {
+    /** Not an http or https URL, or one with credentials, a query or a fragment in it. */
+    InvalidUrl: 'invalid-url',
+    /** Nothing answered: no such host, a refused connection, a TLS failure. */
+    Unreachable: 'unreachable',
+    /** Something answered, but not inside the lookup's bound. */
+    Timeout: 'timeout',
+    /** A 401 or a 403: the key is wrong, or one is needed. */
+    Unauthorized: 'unauthorized',
+    /** A redirect, which is not followed, so the key is never carried to a host nobody typed. */
+    Redirected: 'redirected',
+    /** An answer that is not a model listing: no such route, a web page, JSON of another shape. */
+    NotOpenAi: 'not-openai',
+    /** Any other error status, which is on the error as `status`. */
+    Failed: 'failed',
+};
+/**
+ * `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models; `kind` says why.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * The message is a sentence for a person, naming the endpoint by its origin only, so it can go
+ * under a form field as it is. `kind` is for a form that words it itself.
+ */
+export class EndpointProbeError extends Error {
+    name = 'EndpointProbeError';
+    kind;
+    /** The HTTP status, where the endpoint answered with one. */
+    status;
+    /**
+     * @param kind - Why the listing failed.
+     * @param message - The same, as a sentence.
+     * @param [status] - The status the endpoint answered with, where it answered.
+     */
+    constructor(kind, message, status) {
+        super(message);
+        this.kind = kind;
+        if (status !== undefined) {
+            this.status = status;
+        }
+    }
+}
+/** How many models `probeEndpoint` hands back unless told otherwise: enough for any picker. */
+const PROBE_MODEL_LIMIT = 500;
+/** The statuses that mean the key, not the server, is what is wrong. */
+const UNAUTHORIZED = new Set([HttpStatus.Unauthorized, HttpStatus.Forbidden]);
+/** The range a redirect is answered in. */
+const REDIRECT_MIN = 300;
+const REDIRECT_MAX = 399;
+/**
+ * Asks an endpoint nobody has saved yet which models it serves, for a form a person is typing it
+ * into.
+ *
+ * @param endpoint - The endpoint as typed. Its key goes as a bearer token where it has one other
+ * than `NO_KEY`; its `requestTimeoutSeconds` bounds the request where that is shorter than
+ * `lookupTimeoutMs`.
+ * @param [options] - Cancellation, and how many models to hand back. See `ProbeOptions`.
+ * @returns The models in order of id, one entry per id, at most `options.limit` of them. Rejects
+ * with the reason of `options.signal` where that stopped it, and with an `EndpointProbeError`
+ * for every other failure.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * `listModels` is for an endpoint that is configured: it pools a client per URL and remembers the
+ * listing, and a form asking at every keystroke would leave a client and a listing behind for
+ * each half-typed URL. This makes one plain request and remembers nothing, so asking again asks
+ * again.
+ *
+ * Redirects are not followed, so a typed key is never carried on to a host nobody typed. Both
+ * listing shapes are read: OpenAI's `{ data: [...] }` by `id`, and Ollama's native
+ * `{ models: [...] }` by `name` where an entry has no `id`. A window is read from the keys
+ * `contextLimitFor` reads, and an id listed twice keeps the window one of its entries stated.
+ */
+export async function probeEndpoint(endpoint, { signal, limit = PROBE_MODEL_LIMIT } = {}) {
+    const baseUrl = normalizeBaseUrl(endpoint.baseUrl);
+    if (baseUrl === null) {
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.InvalidUrl, 'A base URL is http:// or https://, with no credentials, query or fragment in it.');
+    }
+    const url = new URL(`${baseUrl}/models`);
+    const within = lookupSignal(endpoint, signal);
+    /** The failure for a request that threw: the caller's stop, the bound, or no answer at all. */
+    const thrown = () => {
+        signal?.throwIfAborted();
+        return within.aborted
+            ? new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.Timeout, `${url.origin} did not answer in time.`)
+            : new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.Unreachable, `Could not reach ${url.origin}.`);
+    };
+    let response;
+    try {
+        response = await fetch(url, { headers: authHeaders(endpoint.apiKey), signal: within, redirect: 'manual' });
+    }
+    catch {
+        throw thrown();
+    }
+    const { status } = response;
+    // A browser hands a refused redirect back as an opaque response with status zero.
+    if (response.type === 'opaqueredirect' || (status >= REDIRECT_MIN && status <= REDIRECT_MAX)) {
+        const location = response.headers.get('location');
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.Redirected, `${url.origin} redirected the request${location ? ` to ${location}` : ''}; use the URL it redirects to.`, status || undefined);
+    }
+    if (UNAUTHORIZED.has(status)) {
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.Unauthorized, `${url.origin} refused the key (${status}).`, status);
+    }
+    if (NOT_THERE.has(status)) {
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.NotOpenAi, `${url.origin} has no model listing there (${status}); is the base URL missing a /v1?`, status);
+    }
+    if (response.ok === false) {
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.Failed, `${url.origin} answered ${status} when asked for its models.`, status);
+    }
+    let body;
+    try {
+        body = await response.json();
+    }
+    catch {
+        if (within.aborted) {
+            throw thrown();
+        }
+        body = undefined;
+    }
+    const { data, models } = (body ?? {});
+    const rows = Array.isArray(data) ? data : Array.isArray(models) ? models : undefined;
+    if (rows === undefined) {
+        throw new EndpointProbeError(ProbeFailure.NotOpenAi, `${url.origin} did not answer with a list of models.`);
+    }
+    const found = new Map();
+    for (const row of rows) {
+        if (row === null || typeof row !== 'object') {
+            continue;
+        }
+        const entry = row;
+        const id = typeof entry.id === 'string' ? entry.id : typeof entry.name === 'string' ? entry.name : '';
+        if (id === '') {
+            continue;
+        }
+        const { contextLength } = contextLengthOf(row);
+        found.set(id, { id, contextLength: contextLength || (found.get(id)?.contextLength ?? 0) });
+    }
+    return [...found.values()].sort((a, b) => byCodeUnit(a.id, b.id)).slice(0, limit);
+}
 /**
  * How much a model will read, in tokens. Zero means nobody knows.
  *
@@ -692,14 +858,14 @@ export function resetClients() {
     refusals().clear();
 }
 /**
- * A base URL as two settings rows would agree on it: trimmed, without the trailing slash.
+ * Whether two base URLs are one endpoint, by `baseUrlKey`.
  *
  * @param a - The URL as one row has it.
  * @param b - The URL as the other has it.
- * @returns `true` where the two differ in nothing but surrounding whitespace and trailing slashes.
- * Case counts, and so does a `/v1`.
+ * @returns `true` where the two differ in nothing but surrounding whitespace, trailing slashes, the
+ * case of the scheme and host, and a default port. A path's case counts, and so does a `/v1`.
  */
-export const sameUrl = (a, b) => a.trim().replace(/\/+$/, '') === b.trim().replace(/\/+$/, '');
+export const sameUrl = (a, b) => baseUrlKey(a) === baseUrlKey(b);
 /**
  * The key to send, where an endpoint may inherit one from the settings it overrides.
  *

package/dist/endpoint/slots.js

@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import { baseUrlKey } from '../core/config.js';
 import { scoped } from '../core/scope.js';
 import { modelKey } from './client.js';
 /**
@@ -22,14 +23,14 @@ const pools = scoped(() => ({ slots: new Map(), clock: 0 }));
  *
  * @param endpoint - The server, read for `baseUrl` alone.
  * @param model - The model, which a llama.cpp router serves from a process with slots of its own.
- * @returns The key: the base URL less its trailing slashes, and the model.
+ * @returns The key: the base URL as `baseUrlKey` writes it, and the model.
  *
  * @remarks
  * The API key is left out where every other per-endpoint cache keys on it. Two keys reaching
  * different servers through one URL cost only a slot left unused; two keys reaching the same
  * server under two allocators hand one slot to two runs, which is the collision this exists to stop.
  */
-const poolKey = (endpoint, model) => modelKey(endpoint.baseUrl.trim().replace(/\/+$/, ''), model);
+const poolKey = (endpoint, model) => modelKey(baseUrlKey(endpoint.baseUrl), model);
 /**
  * The slot allocator for one endpoint and model, sized to what its `/props` said.
  *

package/dist/index.d.ts

@@ -11,10 +11,10 @@
  */
 export { applyCompaction, COMPACT_AT, type CompactionOptions, type CompactionPlan, type CompactionRecord, type CompactionRunOptions, compactTranscript, KEEP_RATIO, type PruneOptions, planCompaction, pruneToolResults, requestIndex, runCompaction, SUMMARY_LEAD, SUMMARY_PROMPT, summariser, } from './context/compaction.ts';
 export { estimateFrom, type LedgerEntry, type LedgerEstimateOptions, type LedgerRequest, rebaseLedger, recordRequest, type TokenLedger, tokensBetween, } from './context/ledger.ts';
-export { type AgentConfig, type Endpoint, type ModelParams, type RetryPolicy, ToolDiscovery, type ToolPolicy, } from './core/config.ts';
+export { type AgentConfig, type Endpoint, type ModelParams, normalizeBaseUrl, type RetryPolicy, ToolDiscovery, type ToolPolicy, } from './core/config.ts';
 export { calibrate, charsPerTokenFor, resetCalibration } from './endpoint/calibration.ts';
 export { type Capabilities, capabilitiesFor, EFFORT_LADDER, EFFORT_NONE, EFFORT_OFF, effortFor, expireCapabilities, type ModelCapabilities, modelCapabilitiesFor, type NegotiateOptions, negotiate, resetCapabilities, } from './endpoint/capabilities.ts';
-export { type ClientPoolOptions, configureClients, contextLimitFor, endpointId, endpointKey, firstTokenMs, getClient, type LookupOptions, listModels, type ModelInfo, NO_KEY, resetClients, resolveApiKey, servedSlots, servedWindow, timeoutMs, } from './endpoint/client.ts';
+export { type ClientPoolOptions, configureClients, contextLimitFor, EndpointProbeError, endpointId, endpointKey, firstTokenMs, getClient, type LookupOptions, listModels, type ModelInfo, NO_KEY, ProbeFailure, type ProbeOptions, probeEndpoint, resetClients, resolveApiKey, servedSlots, servedWindow, timeoutMs, } from './endpoint/client.ts';
 export { isGrammarError, relaxSchema, relaxTools, sanitizeSchema, sanitizeTools, } from './endpoint/schema-compat.ts';
 export { CACHE_PROMPT_FIELD, resetSlots, SESSION_HEADER, SLOT_FIELD, type SlotAllocator, slotAllocator, } from './endpoint/slots.ts';
 export { HOOK_EVENTS, HookEvent, INJECT_EVENTS } from './hooks/hook-events.ts';
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ export { preview, type ToolDispatch } from './run/run-calls.ts';
 export { resetAll } from './runtime/reset.ts';
 export { createRuntime, defaultRuntime, type Runtime, type RuntimeOptions } from './runtime/runtime.ts';
 export { CAPABILITY_SNAPSHOT_VERSION, type CapabilitySnapshot, type EndpointSnapshot, exportCapabilities, importCapabilities, type ModelSnapshot, } from './runtime/snapshot.ts';
+export { defineSpecColumns, type ExtensionPath, type SpecColumn, type SpecColumnMapping, type SpecColumns, type SpecColumnsOptions, type SpecDrop, type SpecPath, type SpecSection, } from './spec/columns.ts';
 export { AGENT_SPEC, AGENT_SPEC_VERSION, AGENT_TASKS, type AgentHook, type AgentSpec, type EndpointSpec, type ExportSpecOptions, exportSpec, findSpecSecrets, type ModelSpec, type ParsedSpec, type ParseSpecOptions, type PromptPart, parseSpec, REF_FILE, REF_URL, RESOLVED_DEFAULTS, type ResolvedAgent, type ResolvedTask, type RetrySpec, resolveAgentSpec, type SecretHint, SecretSign, SPEC_EVENTS, type SpecBundle, type SpecServer, type TaskSpec, type ToolsSpec, } from './spec/spec.ts';
 export type { CatalogServer } from './tools/catalog.ts';
 export { SERVER_INSTRUCTION_TOKENS, type ServerInstructionsOptions, serverInstructionsPrompt, } from './tools/instructions.ts';

package/dist/index.js

@@ -11,10 +11,10 @@
  */
 export { applyCompaction, COMPACT_AT, compactTranscript, KEEP_RATIO, planCompaction, pruneToolResults, requestIndex, runCompaction, SUMMARY_LEAD, SUMMARY_PROMPT, summariser, } from './context/compaction.js';
 export { estimateFrom, rebaseLedger, recordRequest, tokensBetween, } from './context/ledger.js';
-export { ToolDiscovery, } from './core/config.js';
+export { normalizeBaseUrl, ToolDiscovery, } from './core/config.js';
 export { calibrate, charsPerTokenFor, resetCalibration } from './endpoint/calibration.js';
 export { capabilitiesFor, EFFORT_LADDER, EFFORT_NONE, EFFORT_OFF, effortFor, expireCapabilities, modelCapabilitiesFor, negotiate, resetCapabilities, } from './endpoint/capabilities.js';
-export { configureClients, contextLimitFor, endpointId, endpointKey, firstTokenMs, getClient, listModels, NO_KEY, resetClients, resolveApiKey, servedSlots, servedWindow, timeoutMs, } from './endpoint/client.js';
+export { configureClients, contextLimitFor, EndpointProbeError, endpointId, endpointKey, firstTokenMs, getClient, listModels, NO_KEY, ProbeFailure, probeEndpoint, resetClients, resolveApiKey, servedSlots, servedWindow, timeoutMs, } from './endpoint/client.js';
 export { isGrammarError, relaxSchema, relaxTools, sanitizeSchema, sanitizeTools, } from './endpoint/schema-compat.js';
 export { CACHE_PROMPT_FIELD, resetSlots, SESSION_HEADER, SLOT_FIELD, slotAllocator, } from './endpoint/slots.js';
 export { HOOK_EVENTS, HookEvent, INJECT_EVENTS } from './hooks/hook-events.js';
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ export { preview } from './run/run-calls.js';
 export { resetAll } from './runtime/reset.js';
 export { createRuntime, defaultRuntime } from './runtime/runtime.js';
 export { CAPABILITY_SNAPSHOT_VERSION, exportCapabilities, importCapabilities, } from './runtime/snapshot.js';
+export { defineSpecColumns, } from './spec/columns.js';
 export { AGENT_SPEC, AGENT_SPEC_VERSION, AGENT_TASKS, exportSpec, findSpecSecrets, parseSpec, REF_FILE, REF_URL, RESOLVED_DEFAULTS, resolveAgentSpec, SecretSign, SPEC_EVENTS, } from './spec/spec.js';
 export { SERVER_INSTRUCTION_TOKENS, serverInstructionsPrompt, } from './tools/instructions.js';
 export { PRESELECT_SCHEMA, PRESELECT_SYSTEM, preselect, preselectByKeywords, preselectInput, preselection, preselectSystem, } from './tools/preselect.js';

package/dist/spec/columns.d.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,162 @@
+import { type AgentSpec, type EndpointSpec, type ModelSpec, type RetrySpec, type TaskSpec, type ToolsSpec } from './spec.ts';
+/**
+ * A host's stored agent, read as a spec layer and written back: one table of columns, and the
+ * marker each column stores for "inherit".
+ *
+ * Every host with profiles had written this projection by hand, three times with three markers —
+ * `""` and `-1` and the word `inherit` in one, `null` in the next, none at all in the third — and
+ * the import half of it once more, with a list of what a row could not keep. The merge was already
+ * `resolveAgentSpec`; what each repeated was which column feeds which field, and how a column at
+ * its marker becomes a field the layer does not have, which is the only spelling of "inherit" a
+ * spec knows.
+ *
+ * Browser-safe for the reason `spec.ts` is: it imports that module and a guard, and nothing that
+ * needs Node, so a form can preview an import with it.
+ */
+/**
+ * Where in a spec a column lives, as a dotted path. A path the format has no field for does not
+ * typecheck.
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * `prompt.<id>` is the text of the prompt part with that id, since a row holds a prompt as one
+ * string and a spec holds it as named layers. A task name is everything between `tasks.` and the
+ * next dot, so a task whose name has a dot in it cannot be addressed — nor can an extension's
+ * reverse-domain key, which is what `ExtensionPath` is for.
+ */
+export type SpecPath = 'id' | 'name' | 'description' | `endpoint.${keyof EndpointSpec}` | `model.${keyof ModelSpec}` | `prompt.${string}` | `tools.${keyof ToolsSpec}` | `retry.${keyof RetrySpec}` | `tasks.${string}.endpoint.${keyof EndpointSpec}` | `tasks.${string}.${Exclude<keyof TaskSpec, 'endpoint'>}`;
+/**
+ * A path into a host's own extension, as segments, because its key is a reverse domain and has
+ * dots of its own.
+ */
+export type ExtensionPath = readonly ['extensions', string, ...string[]];
+/** The top-level keys of a spec, for naming a whole section a host reads by hand. */
+export type SpecSection = '$schema' | 'id' | 'name' | 'description' | 'endpoint' | 'model' | 'prompt' | 'tools' | 'retry' | 'tasks' | 'hooks' | 'bundle' | 'extensions' | 'requires';
+/**
+ * One column: where its value lives in a spec, what it stores for "inherit", and how its value
+ * crosses when the column and the field do not hold the same thing.
+ *
+ * @typeParam Value - The column's own type, which `inherit` and both conversions are checked
+ * against.
+ */
+export interface SpecColumn<Value> {
+    path: SpecPath | ExtensionPath;
+    /**
+     * What the column stores for "say nothing here": a value at it is a field the layer leaves out,
+     * and a field the layer leaves out reads back as it. Compared with `===`. Left out, the column
+     * has no marker — every value it holds is said, which is a host's bottom layer — and an absent
+     * field leaves the column out of what `fromLayer` returns.
+     *
+     * @remarks
+     * `null` and `undefined` are absent whatever the marker is, as they are to `parseSpec`, so a
+     * nullable column needs no marker to inherit and `inherit: null` only adds the read-back.
+     */
+    inherit?: Value;
+    /**
+     * The column's value as the field holds it, for a column that stores something else — a switch
+     * for a mode, say. Called for a value that is neither absent nor the marker, and `undefined`
+     * back says nothing, which is how a marker that is a range rather than one value (a trimmed
+     * blank, any negative) is spelled. Left out, the value crosses as it is.
+     */
+    toSpec?: (value: Exclude<Value, null | undefined>) => unknown;
+    /**
+     * The field's value as the column would store it, or `undefined` where the column cannot hold
+     * it — which `fromLayer` writes as the marker and `dropped` reports against this column. Left
+     * out, the value crosses as `parseSpec` left it, and the path is what says its type.
+     */
+    fromSpec?: (value: unknown) => Value | undefined;
+}
+/**
+ * A row's columns, each mapped to a field: keyed by column, so a name the row does not have is an
+ * excess property and a marker of the wrong type does not typecheck.
+ *
+ * @typeParam Row - The stored row. Only the columns named here are read or written.
+ */
+export type SpecColumns<Row> = {
+    [Column in keyof Row]?: SpecColumn<Row[Column]>;
+};
+/** What `defineSpecColumns` takes besides the columns. */
+export interface SpecColumnsOptions {
+    /**
+     * What the host reads by hand, so `dropped` does not report it: a section (`bundle`), a path
+     * (`tools.servers`, where a list of slugs becomes a list of row ids) or an extension. `spec` is
+     * never reported, and needs no entry here.
+     */
+    handled?: readonly (SpecSection | SpecPath | `tasks.${string}` | ExtensionPath)[];
+}
+/** One thing a document says that a row will not keep. */
+export interface SpecDrop<Row> {
+    /** Where it is, in `parseSpec`'s spelling: `model.extraBody`, `prompt[1]`, `hooks[0]`. */
+    path: string;
+    /** What the document held there. */
+    value: unknown;
+    /**
+     * The column that refused it: present when there is a column for the field and its `fromSpec`
+     * could not store this value, absent when there is no column for the field at all.
+     */
+    column?: keyof Row;
+}
+/**
+ * A row's column table, both ways.
+ *
+ * @typeParam Row - The stored row.
+ */
+export interface SpecColumnMapping<Row> {
+    /**
+     * The row as a spec layer, saying only what the row says.
+     *
+     * @param row - The row, or any part of it: a column the row does not carry says nothing.
+     * @returns A layer holding every column that is neither absent nor at its marker. A section
+     * nothing was said in is left out, and the layer is not yet parsed.
+     */
+    toLayer(row: Partial<Row>): AgentSpec;
+    /**
+     * A spec layer as the row would store it.
+     *
+     * @param layer - A layer `parseSpec` has read, so each field is of its path's type.
+     * @returns Every mapped column: its field's value, or its marker where the field is absent or
+     * `fromSpec` refused it. A column with no marker is left out where its field is absent.
+     */
+    fromLayer(layer: AgentSpec): Partial<Row>;
+    /**
+     * What a spec says that `fromLayer` would not keep: a field with no column, and a value a column
+     * refused.
+     *
+     * @param spec - A layer `parseSpec` has read.
+     * @returns Each loss once, in the document's order. Empty when the row keeps everything.
+     *
+     * @remarks
+     * A field this format names is reported at its own path, a section with nothing mapped in it
+     * whole beneath that: an `extraBody` no column takes is one entry, not one per key. A prompt
+     * part is a column's when its id is, and its `ref` is reported, since a column holds a text.
+     */
+    dropped(spec: AgentSpec): SpecDrop<Row>[];
+}
+/**
+ * A column table from a stored row to a spec layer and back, with each column's "inherit" marker
+ * a parameter.
+ *
+ * @typeParam Row - The stored row: a settings row, a profile, an override layer.
+ * @param columns - Each mapped column, keyed by its name on the row.
+ * @param [options] - What the host reads by hand, outside the table.
+ * @returns `toLayer`, `fromLayer` and `dropped` over that one table.
+ * @throws When two columns write the same field, or one writes a section another writes inside.
+ *
+ * @example
+ * ```ts
+ * const profile = defineSpecColumns<Agent>({
+ *   model: { path: 'model.model', inherit: '' },
+ *   maxTokens: { path: 'model.maxTokens', inherit: -1 },
+ *   toolDiscovery: { path: 'tools.discovery', inherit: 'inherit' },
+ *   compactionModel: { path: 'tasks.compaction.model', inherit: '' },
+ *   toolExecution: { path: ['extensions', 'com.example.host', 'toolExecution'], inherit: 'inherit' },
+ * });
+ * resolveAgentSpec([settings.toLayer(row), profile.toLayer(agent)]);
+ * ```
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * Keyed by column rather than by field, so the marker and the conversions are typed against that
+ * column's own type and a column cannot be mapped twice. A column feeds one field: a row that
+ * spreads one field over several columns, or a record column over many fields, reads that part by
+ * hand and names it in `handled`.
+ */
+export declare function defineSpecColumns<Row>(columns: SpecColumns<Row>, { handled }?: SpecColumnsOptions): SpecColumnMapping<Row>;

package/dist/spec/columns.js

@@ -0,0 +1,275 @@
+import { isRecord } from '../core/guards.js';
+import { AGENT_SPEC, } from './spec.js';
+/**
+ * The sections `dropped` always walks into, so a field the format names is reported at its own
+ * path. Anything deeper — one task, one extension — is walked into only where a column is mapped
+ * beneath it, and is otherwise reported whole: a side task this host does not run is one loss.
+ */
+const STRUCTURAL = ['endpoint', 'model', 'tools', 'retry', 'tasks', 'extensions'];
+/** The section whose entries are named layers of text, addressed by `prompt.<id>`. */
+const PROMPT = 'prompt';
+/** The section whose entries are hooks, which `dropped` reports one by one. */
+const HOOKS = 'hooks';
+/** The key every layer declares itself under, which belongs to no column. */
+const TOKEN = 'spec';
+/**
+ * Absent and null are the same thing, as they are to `parseSpec`.
+ *
+ * @param value - A column's or a field's value.
+ * @returns `true` for `undefined` and `null` only.
+ */
+const absent = (value) => value === undefined || value === null;
+/**
+ * A path as segments.
+ *
+ * @param path - A dotted path or an extension's segments.
+ * @returns The segments: a prompt id is one segment whatever it holds, and a task name the text up
+ * to the next dot.
+ */
+function segmentsOf(path) {
+    if (typeof path !== 'string') {
+        return path;
+    }
+    const prefix = `${PROMPT}.`;
+    if (path.startsWith(prefix)) {
+        return [PROMPT, path.slice(prefix.length)];
+    }
+    return path.split('.');
+}
+/**
+ * Whether one path is the other or lies beneath it.
+ *
+ * @param prefix - The shorter path.
+ * @param path - The path that may lie beneath it.
+ * @returns `true` when every segment of `prefix` begins `path`.
+ */
+const startsWith = (prefix, path) => prefix.length <= path.length && prefix.every((segment, index) => segment === path[index]);
+/**
+ * Whether two paths are the same segments.
+ *
+ * @param a - One path.
+ * @param b - The other.
+ * @returns `true` when they are the same length and agree throughout.
+ */
+const samePath = (a, b) => a.length === b.length && startsWith(a, b);
+/**
+ * The value at a path in a layer.
+ *
+ * @param layer - The layer.
+ * @param segments - Where to look. `['prompt', id]` reads that part's text.
+ * @returns What is there, or `undefined`.
+ */
+function read(layer, segments) {
+    if (segments[0] === PROMPT) {
+        return layer.prompt?.find((part) => part.id === segments[1])?.text;
+    }
+    let held = layer;
+    for (const segment of segments) {
+        if (isRecord(held) === false) {
+            return undefined;
+        }
+        held = held[segment];
+    }
+    return held;
+}
+/**
+ * Puts a value at a path in a layer being built, making the sections on the way.
+ *
+ * @param layer - The layer, as a plain object.
+ * @param segments - Where it goes. `['prompt', id]` appends a part.
+ * @param value - What goes there.
+ */
+function write(layer, segments, value) {
+    if (segments[0] === PROMPT) {
+        const parts = Array.isArray(layer.prompt) ? layer.prompt : [];
+        layer.prompt = [...parts, { id: segments[1], text: value }];
+        return;
+    }
+    let section = layer;
+    for (const segment of segments.slice(0, -1)) {
+        const next = section[segment];
+        section[segment] = isRecord(next) ? next : {};
+        section = section[segment];
+    }
+    section[segments[segments.length - 1]] = value;
+}
+/**
+ * Refuses a table that cannot be read both ways.
+ *
+ * @param entries - The table's columns.
+ * @throws When a path has an empty segment, or one column's path is another's or lies beneath it —
+ * two columns writing one field, or one writing a section another writes inside.
+ */
+function checkTable(entries) {
+    for (const [index, entry] of entries.entries()) {
+        if (entry.segments.some((segment) => segment === '')) {
+            throw new Error(`defineSpecColumns: ${String(entry.column)} has an empty segment in its path`);
+        }
+        for (const other of entries.slice(index + 1)) {
+            if (startsWith(entry.segments, other.segments) || startsWith(other.segments, entry.segments)) {
+                throw new Error(`defineSpecColumns: ${String(entry.column)} and ${String(other.column)} write the same field`);
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}
+/**
+ * A column table from a stored row to a spec layer and back, with each column's "inherit" marker
+ * a parameter.
+ *
+ * @typeParam Row - The stored row: a settings row, a profile, an override layer.
+ * @param columns - Each mapped column, keyed by its name on the row.
+ * @param [options] - What the host reads by hand, outside the table.
+ * @returns `toLayer`, `fromLayer` and `dropped` over that one table.
+ * @throws When two columns write the same field, or one writes a section another writes inside.
+ *
+ * @example
+ * ```ts
+ * const profile = defineSpecColumns<Agent>({
+ *   model: { path: 'model.model', inherit: '' },
+ *   maxTokens: { path: 'model.maxTokens', inherit: -1 },
+ *   toolDiscovery: { path: 'tools.discovery', inherit: 'inherit' },
+ *   compactionModel: { path: 'tasks.compaction.model', inherit: '' },
+ *   toolExecution: { path: ['extensions', 'com.example.host', 'toolExecution'], inherit: 'inherit' },
+ * });
+ * resolveAgentSpec([settings.toLayer(row), profile.toLayer(agent)]);
+ * ```
+ *
+ * @remarks
+ * Keyed by column rather than by field, so the marker and the conversions are typed against that
+ * column's own type and a column cannot be mapped twice. A column feeds one field: a row that
+ * spreads one field over several columns, or a record column over many fields, reads that part by
+ * hand and names it in `handled`.
+ */
+export function defineSpecColumns(columns, { handled = [] } = {}) {
+    const entries = [];
+    for (const column of Object.keys(columns)) {
+        const definition = columns[column];
+        if (definition) {
+            entries.push({ column, segments: segmentsOf(definition.path), hasMarker: 'inherit' in definition, definition });
+        }
+    }
+    checkTable(entries);
+    const handledPaths = handled.map(segmentsOf);
+    /**
+     * What a column stores for a field's value.
+     *
+     * @param entry - The column.
+     * @param value - The field's value, present.
+     * @returns The column's value, or `undefined` where it refused it.
+     */
+    const stored = (entry, value) => entry.definition.fromSpec ? entry.definition.fromSpec(value) : value;
+    return {
+        toLayer(row) {
+            const layer = { spec: AGENT_SPEC };
+            for (const { column, segments, hasMarker, definition } of entries) {
+                const value = row[column];
+                const inherits = absent(value) || (hasMarker && value === definition.inherit);
+                if (inherits) {
+                    continue;
+                }
+                const said = definition.toSpec ? definition.toSpec(value) : value;
+                if (absent(said) === false) {
+                    write(layer, segments, said);
+                }
+            }
+            // Built as a plain object because the paths are data; each field is the column's value, of
+            // its path's type when the host's `toSpec` says so, and `parseSpec` is the check on that.
+            return layer;
+        },
+        fromLayer(layer) {
+            const row = {};
+            for (const entry of entries) {
+                const value = read(layer, entry.segments);
+                const kept = absent(value) ? undefined : stored(entry, value);
+                if (kept !== undefined) {
+                    row[entry.column] = kept;
+                }
+                else if (entry.hasMarker) {
+                    row[entry.column] = entry.definition.inherit;
+                }
+            }
+            return row;
+        },
+        dropped(spec) {
+            const drops = [];
+            const isHandled = (path) => handledPaths.some((prefix) => startsWith(prefix, path));
+            const columnAt = (path) => entries.find((entry) => samePath(entry.segments, path));
+            const mappedBeneath = (path) => entries.some((entry) => entry.segments.length > path.length && startsWith(path, entry.segments));
+            const isStructural = (path) => path.length === 0 || (path.length === 1 && STRUCTURAL.includes(path[0]));
+            /**
+             * Reports a column's refusal of a value, if it refuses it.
+             *
+             * @param entry - The column at this path.
+             * @param path - The path as `parseSpec` spells it.
+             * @param value - The field's value, present.
+             */
+            const offer = (entry, path, value) => {
+                if (stored(entry, value) === undefined) {
+                    drops.push({ path, value, column: entry.column });
+                }
+            };
+            /**
+             * Reports every part of a prompt no column takes, and every reference one does.
+             *
+             * @param parts - The layer's prompt.
+             */
+            const walkPrompt = (parts) => {
+                for (const [index, part] of parts.entries()) {
+                    const path = [PROMPT, part.id];
+                    if (isHandled(path)) {
+                        continue;
+                    }
+                    const entry = columnAt(path);
+                    if (entry === undefined) {
+                        drops.push({ path: `${PROMPT}[${index}]`, value: part });
+                        continue;
+                    }
+                    if (absent(part.text) === false) {
+                        offer(entry, `${PROMPT}[${index}].text`, part.text);
+                    }
+                    if (part.ref) {
+                        drops.push({ path: `${PROMPT}[${index}].ref`, value: part.ref });
+                    }
+                }
+            };
+            /**
+             * Reports what lies at a path and is not kept, descending where something beneath is mapped.
+             *
+             * @param value - What the document holds at the path.
+             * @param path - Where it is, as segments.
+             */
+            const walk = (value, path) => {
+                if (absent(value) || isHandled(path)) {
+                    return;
+                }
+                const entry = columnAt(path);
+                if (entry) {
+                    offer(entry, path.join('.'), value);
+                    return;
+                }
+                if (path.length === 1 && path[0] === PROMPT && Array.isArray(value)) {
+                    walkPrompt(value);
+                    return;
+                }
+                if (path.length === 1 && path[0] === HOOKS && Array.isArray(value)) {
+                    for (const [index, hook] of value.entries()) {
+                        drops.push({ path: `${HOOKS}[${index}]`, value: hook });
+                    }
+                    return;
+                }
+                if (isRecord(value) && (isStructural(path) || mappedBeneath(path))) {
+                    for (const [key, held] of Object.entries(value)) {
+                        const isToken = path.length === 0 && key === TOKEN;
+                        if (isToken === false) {
+                            walk(held, [...path, key]);
+                        }
+                    }
+                    return;
+                }
+                drops.push({ path: path.join('.'), value });
+            };
+            walk(spec, []);
+            return drops;
+        },
+    };
+}

package/dist/wire/wire.d.ts

@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ export declare const HttpStatus: {
     readonly Ok: 200;
     readonly BadRequest: 400;
     readonly Unauthorized: 401;
+    readonly Forbidden: 403;
     readonly NotFound: 404;
     readonly MethodNotAllowed: 405;
     readonly RequestTimeout: 408;

package/dist/wire/wire.js

@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ export const HttpStatus = {
     Ok: 200,
     BadRequest: 400,
     Unauthorized: 401,
+    Forbidden: 403,
     NotFound: 404,
     MethodNotAllowed: 405,
     RequestTimeout: 408,

package/llms.txt

@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ What this package needs to know about a caller's configuration.
 - `AgentConfig` (type) — A whole agent configuration — every part, plus the two fields that belong to no group.
 - `Endpoint` (type) — Where to send a request and how long to wait.
 - `ModelParams` (type) — What to ask the model for.
+- `normalizeBaseUrl` — A base URL worth storing: http or https, no credentials, query or fragment, no trailing slash.
 - `RetryPolicy` (type) — How many times a lost or refused request is worth sending again.
 - `ToolDiscovery` — Any one of the modes in `ToolDiscovery`.
 - `ToolPolicy` (type) — How tools reach the model, and how long it may keep calling them.
@@ -84,6 +85,7 @@ What an endpoint turned out not to support, and answering it when it says so.
 - `ClientPoolOptions` (type) — What the client pool is held to across a process.
 - `configureClients` — Changes what the client pool is held to, for a process whose endpoints are not shaped like the deployments these defaults were chosen for.
 - `contextLimitFor` — How much a model will read, in tokens.
+- `EndpointProbeError` — `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models; `kind` says why.
 - `endpointId` — `endpointKey` hashed, for the remembered facts that can leave the process.
 - `endpointKey` — What counts as one endpoint, everywhere in this package that has to remember something about one — the model listings, `capabilities`, and the no-thinking hints in `side-task`.
 - `firstTokenMs` — The wait for a streamed turn's first chunk, in the SDK's spelling: `undefined` is no limit.
@@ -92,6 +94,9 @@ What an endpoint turned out not to support, and answering it when it says so.
 - `listModels` — Asks an endpoint what it serves, and remembers the answer.
 - `ModelInfo` (type) — A model an endpoint offers, and what it says the model will read.
 - `NO_KEY` — The SDK insists on a non-empty key even where the server will not look at it.
+- `ProbeFailure` — Why `probeEndpoint` could not list an endpoint's models, in words a form can branch on.
+- `ProbeOptions` (type) — What `probeEndpoint` takes besides the endpoint.
+- `probeEndpoint` — Asks an endpoint nobody has saved yet which models it serves, for a form a person is typing it into.
 - `resetClients` — Forgets every cached client and listing, and puts `configureClients` back to the defaults.
 - `resolveApiKey` — The key to send, where an endpoint may inherit one from the settings it overrides.
 - `servedSlots` — How many slots a llama.cpp server runs a model in, for pinning a session to one of them.
@@ -221,6 +226,20 @@ What endpoints and models refused, carried across a restart.
 - `importCapabilities` — Latches what a stored snapshot says was refused, on top of whatever this process has learned.
 - `ModelSnapshot` (type) — What one model on an endpoint refused.
 
+### columns
+
+A host's stored agent, read as a spec layer and written back: one table of columns, and the marker each column stores for "inherit".
+
+- `defineSpecColumns` — A column table from a stored row to a spec layer and back, with each column's "inherit" marker a parameter.
+- `ExtensionPath` (type) — A path into a host's own extension, as segments, because its key is a reverse domain and has dots of its own.
+- `SpecColumn` (type) — One column: where its value lives in a spec, what it stores for "inherit", and how its value crosses when the column and the field do not hold the same thing.
+- `SpecColumnMapping` (type) — A row's column table, both ways.
+- `SpecColumns` (type) — A row's columns, each mapped to a field: keyed by column, so a name the row does not have is an excess property and a marker of the wrong type does not typecheck.
+- `SpecColumnsOptions` (type) — What `defineSpecColumns` takes besides the columns.
+- `SpecDrop` (type) — One thing a document says that a row will not keep.
+- `SpecPath` (type) — Where in a spec a column lives, as a dotted path.
+- `SpecSection` (type) — The top-level keys of a spec, for naming a whole section a host reads by hand.
+
 ### spec
 
 A JSON document that defines an agent, and the rules for reading one.

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@cubicecho/agent-core",
-  "version": "4.11.0",
+  "version": "4.13.0",
   "description": "The endpoint-agnostic half of an OpenAI-compatible agent loop: tool-schema compatibility, on-demand tool loading, one-shot side tasks, run events, and a pooled client.",
   "keywords": [
     "openai",
@@ -35,6 +35,10 @@
     "./spec": {
       "types": "./dist/spec/spec.d.ts",
       "import": "./dist/spec/spec.js"
+    },
+    "./spec/columns": {
+      "types": "./dist/spec/columns.d.ts",
+      "import": "./dist/spec/columns.js"
     }
   },
   "files": [