Resolve Context Reference

Resolution depends on facts the application knows at request time: account plan, service lane, country, stable account id, or other runtime state. Rototo calls those facts the resolve context.

The context is always a JSON object.

CLI Context

The CLI accepts repeatable --context values:

rototo resolve account-config \
  --variable account-limits \
  --context account.plan=enterprise \
  --context '{"request":{"country":"DE"}}'

Each --context value can be:

Assignments parse the right-hand side as JSON when possible. If parsing fails, the value is treated as a string.

--context account.seats=42      # number
--context account.enabled=true  # boolean
--context account.plan=growth   # string

Repeatable context inputs merge left to right. Nested objects are merged. Later scalar or array values replace earlier values at the same path.

If no context is passed to rototo resolve, rototo uses {}.

SDK Context

The SDK uses ResolveContext:

use rototo::ResolveContext;

let context = ResolveContext::from_json(serde_json::json!({
    "account": {
        "plan": "enterprise"
    }
}))?;

ResolveContext::from_json rejects non-object JSON.

Context Schema

When a workspace contains schemas/context.schema.json, rototo treats it as the schema for resolve context.

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "type": "object",
  "required": ["account"],
  "properties": {
    "account": {
      "type": "object",
      "required": ["plan"],
      "properties": {
        "plan": { "type": "string" },
        "seats": { "type": "integer" }
      }
    }
  }
}

The schema has two jobs:

• lint verifies qualifier attribute paths and operator compatibility;
• runtime resolution validates the context object before evaluating qualifiers.

SDK callers can disable runtime context validation with ResolveOptions, but that should be a deliberate app boundary decision.

Reserved Field

The top-level field qualifier is reserved. Rototo uses qualifier.<id> attributes to reference other qualifiers during predicate evaluation.

Do not declare qualifier in schemas/context.schema.json as an application-owned field.

Missing Context

If a qualifier reads a context path that is missing at runtime, resolution fails:

missing resolve context attribute: account.plan required by qualifier://paid-account

Use context schemas and app tests to catch those failures before the service depends on the workspace.