Skip to content

Inheritance

LLMling supports inheritance both for individual agents and entire YAML files, making configurations more reusable and maintainable.

Agent Inheritance

Agents can inherit configuration from other agents using the inherits field:

agents:
  # Base agent configuration
  base_assistant:
    model: openai:gpt-5
    system_prompts:
      - "You are a helpful assistant."
    toolsets:
      - type: resource_access

  # Specialized agent inheriting base config
  code_assistant:
    inherits: base_assistant  # Inherit from base
    description: "Specializes in code review"
    system_prompts:  # Extends base prompts
      - "Focus on code quality and best practices."
    toolsets:  # Extends base toolsets
      - type: code_execution

  # Another specialized agent
  docs_assistant:
    inherits: base_assistant
    description: "Specializes in documentation"
    system_prompts:
      - "Focus on clear documentation."

Child agents:

  • Inherit all fields from parent
  • Can override any inherited field
  • Can add new fields
  • System prompts are combined

YAML File Inheritance

Using Yamling's inheritance system, entire YAML files can inherit from other files:

base.yml
agents:
  base_agent:
    model: openai:gpt-5
    toolsets:
      - type: resource_access

storage:
  providers:
    - type: sql
      url: sqlite:///history.db
agents.yml
INHERIT: base.yml  # Inherit entire base configuration

agents:
  specialized_agent:
    inherits: base_agent
    description: "Specialized version"

Remote File Inheritance

Yamling supports UPath, allowing inheritance from remote files:

# Inherit from remote sources
INHERIT:
  - base.yml
  - https://example.com/base_config.yml
  - s3://my-bucket/configs/agents.yml
  - git+https://github.com/org/repo/config.yml

Inheritance Resolution

Agent Inheritance

  1. Start with parent configuration
  2. Recursively resolve parent inheritances
  3. Apply child configuration:
  4. Override simple fields
  5. Merge lists (e.g., system_prompts)
  6. Update dictionaries (e.g., capabilities)

YAML File Inheritance

  1. Load all inherited files in order
  2. Merge configurations:
  3. Later files override earlier ones
  4. Lists and dictionaries are merged
  5. Complex fields use smart merging

Inheritance in LLMling helps maintain DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) configurations while allowing for flexible specialization at both the agent and file level.