Layered configuration — the unified config tree, agent config, and the XML/empathy config layer

Comparison

Four layers, distinct jobs:

Unified config Agent config XML/empathy config Legacy dataclass
Class UnifiedConfig UnifiedAgentConfig EmpathyXMLConfig AttuneConfig
Entry load_unified_config() construct / for_book_production get_config() load_config()
Scope App-wide sections LLM agent runtime Empathy subsystem Back-compat
Status Modern (preferred) Active Active (subsystem) Legacy

load_config() and load_unified_config() return different types (AttuneConfig vs UnifiedConfig) — they are not interchangeable.