How to extend constants?

[jamesbraza]

I figured out a way to extend constants.xml with `guardrails-ai==v0.2.9:

from guardrails import Guard
from guardrails.utils.constants import constants
from pydantic import BaseModel, Field


class Pet(BaseModel):
    pet_type: str = Field(description="Species of pet")
    name: str = Field(description="Unique pet name")


constants["my_prompt"] = "This is my prompt."
prompt = """What kind of pet should I get and what should I name it?

${gr.my_prompt}

${gr.complete_json_suffix_v2}"""
guard = Guard.from_pydantic(output_class=Pet, prompt=prompt)
assert "This is my prompt" in str(guard.prompt)

Is this the "correct" way to do it? Or is there a more documented/standard method?

[jamesbraza]

I am wondering if Guardrails should protect constants, and then make a new user-facing ConstantsContainer that is prefixed ext.my_prompt. So it would be:

_guardrails_constants = ConstantsContainer(fill="constants.xml")  # ${gr.abc}
constants_extensions = ConstantsContainer()  # ${ext.abc}

[zsimjee]

Hi james! This is a great idea, I think for now we'll say that the correct way to do this is to use 'constants'. I do like the idea of protecting the field and changing the access pattern. But I was thinking maybe we could make it part of the guard? For ex,

guard.set_constants("my_prompt", "this is a prompt")
guard.load_constants("constants_file.xml")

[jamesbraza]

Yeah I like it! I wasn't sure if Guardrails wants to block access to the gr. constants. I guess just making ways to append (without editing) is no problem.

I like what you pose! Could adding methods like update and/or __iadd__ to the ConstantsContainer that are used underneath the load_constants/add_constants