What you can depend on

What you can depend on

These are the parts bothy will not change out from under you within a major version. Rename or remove any of them and that is a breaking change, announced as one.

• The keys in config.toml. Existing keys are not renamed or removed. When one has to change, the old name keeps working and bothy doctor names the replacement — that is what config.Retired is for.
• The profile and palette TOML schemas, so a profile you wrote keeps rendering.
• The two directories. ~/.local/share/bothy/ holds what bothy installs, ~/.config/bothy/ holds what you set. Neither moves.
• The doctor --json shape, and the check IDs in it. --json exists so something else can read it; IDs may be added, but an existing one keeps its meaning. New checks are additive, so parse defensively and ignore what you do not recognise.

config.toml carries schema = 1, written at the top of the file. It is bothy's bookkeeping rather than a setting — bothy config set refuses it — and it exists so a newer bothy can recognise an older file deliberately rather than by absence. A config from a newer bothy still loads: doctor warns, and the keys this version understands still work.

What is not covered: anything printed for a human to read, the layout of bothy doctor's normal output, and the internal Go packages. Those change when there is a reason.

---

ADR-036 records what this obliges and why a config from a newer bothy warns rather than refuses.