Werkdock RFC 0003 candidate: composable toolchain mounts

Run-time composition instead of baked-in toolchain combinations: a slim
base image plus per-toolchain prefix binds (--with jdk-21 --with go-1.24),
possible because official toolchain tarballs live under their own
prefixes — plain ro-binds, no overlayfs, no root, today's bwrap.
Comes due when a second toolchain combination is needed; until then the
one fat image stays the deliberate choice.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

README.md

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ Werkdock's storage model is coarser than Docker's on the image side and cheaper
   Ten parallel runs in one image add zero filesystem copies; what grows per project are its own caches in bound volumes.
 - Consequence: prefer ONE fat image shared by all projects over per-project images.
 - Watch out for orphans: consumers that key an unpacked environment by the archive's source path (Werkator's bwrap runtime does) leave the old tree behind on every path change; pruning is manual until `rmi`/`prune` verbs exist.
-- Future options that would remove the flat-tree cost, in their own RFCs when they come due: overlayfs layers (the kernel allows it unprivileged in a user namespace since 5.11; the webspaces' bwrap 0.8.0 cannot yet) or hardlink deduplication between image versions in the store (the ostree principle, no root needed).
+- Future options that would remove the flat-tree cost, in their own RFCs when they come due: composable toolchain mounts — a slim base plus per-toolchain prefix binds, no overlayfs needed ([RFC 0003](docs/rfcs/0003-composable-toolchain-mounts.md), candidate) — overlayfs layers (the kernel allows it unprivileged in a user namespace since 5.11; the webspaces' bwrap 0.8.0 cannot yet), or hardlink deduplication between image versions in the store (the ostree principle, no root needed).
 
 ## Build and Test
 

docs/rfcs/0003-composable-toolchain-mounts.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+# RFC 0003: Composable Toolchain Mounts
+
+**Status:**
+- proposed: 2026-09-01 (as a candidate — comes due when more than one toolchain combination is needed)
+- accepted: -
+- rejected: -
+
+**Proposal:** Instead of baking every toolchain combination into its own flat image, werkdock composes a sandbox at run time: a slim base image plus per-toolchain artifacts from the store, mounted read-only under their own prefixes.
+
+## Context and Problem Statement
+
+Werkdock images are flat trees without layers (see the Disk Footprint section of the README): every toolchain combination is a full archive, built, uploaded, and unpacked as a whole.
+The pain is concrete: adding Go and Node to the JDK build environment meant rebuilding and re-uploading a ~600 MB archive whose JDK half did not change.
+Docker solves this with content-addressed layers over overlayfs — which needs either root or an overlay-capable bwrap (0.9+), neither available on the target webspaces today.
+
+## The Key Insight
+
+Overlayfs is only needed when trees must merge *at the same paths*.
+Toolchains that live under their own prefix need no merging at all — and the official tarball distributions do exactly that:
+
+- Go unpacks to `/usr/local/go`
+- Node unpacks to `/usr/local/node-<version>`
+- Temurin JDKs unpack to `/usr/local/jdk-<version>`
+
+So composition is plain bind mounts, available in every bwrap version, no root, no overlayfs:
+
+```
+werkdock run --rm --with jdk-21 --with go-1.24 --with node-20 base sh -c '...'
+```
+
+## Sketch
+
+- The base image shrinks to what apt must provide (debootstrap minbase, git, ca-certificates, locales — roughly 300 MB unpacked).
+- A *toolchain* is a store artifact beside images: an unpacked tarball plus a small manifest naming its mount prefix and the environment it needs (`PATH` entries, `JAVA_HOME`, `GOROOT`, ...).
+- `--with NAME` adds a read-only bind of the toolchain at its prefix and applies its manifest environment; order follows the flags, like `-v`.
+- Deduplication falls out for free: each toolchain is stored once, every combination costs zero additional disk.
+
+## Limits
+
+- Only tarball-distributed toolchains fit; apt-installed ones spread across `/usr` and cannot be prefix-mounted.
+  For JDK, Go, and Node the official tarballs exist; toolchains without one stay in the base image.
+- `--with` is a werkdock extension beyond the docker-compatible surface (RFC 0002) — docker has no counterpart.
+  It is additive: level-1 compatibility of the remaining CLI is untouched.
+
+## Considered Alternatives
+
+- On-target image building (apt/mmdebstrap on the webspace, unprivileged): technically possible via user namespaces, but slow, network-bound per build, and a relapse into the self-build drift step 21 corrects — build locally, install artifacts.
+- Letting package managers fill a persistent home cache (Gradle toolchains, Go modules): works today as a side effect, but unhermetic and network-dependent on cold caches.
+- Overlayfs layers or hardlink dedup between image versions: the general solutions, still worthwhile later, but blocked on bwrap 0.9+ (overlay) or more store machinery (dedup) — composition needs neither.
+
+## Decision Outcome
+
+Pending — to be decided when a second toolchain combination is actually needed (for example Werkbaum pinning its own Node version).
+Until then the one fat image (RFC 0002 outcome, plan step 21) stays the deliberate choice.