@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+---
+summary: Make a second bootstrapper on an already-bootstrapped application fail loudly — `bootstrap()` raises `ConfigurationError` instead of dying inside Litestar with a duplicate-route error or silently double-registering FastAPI's routes.
+---
+
+# Design: Fail fast when a second bootstrapper targets the same application
+
+## Summary
+
+`_attach_teardown_once` guards teardown attachment, and only that. A second
+bootstrapper constructed on the same application still applies every instrument
+again when `bootstrap()` is called, because nothing stops it. Litestar dies with
+a confusing error from deep inside the framework; FastAPI silently registers a
+second copy of the health and metrics routes. Make `bootstrap()` raise
+`ConfigurationError` on the bootstrapper whose attach was skipped.
+
+## Motivation
+
+The construction-time warning already tells the user what the supported model
+is — "construct one `<Bootstrapper>` per application" — but nothing enforces it,
+and the two frameworks fail in opposite, equally unhelpful ways. Both
+reproduced on the current tree:
+
+```python
+first = LitestarBootstrapper(bootstrap_config=config_a)
+second = LitestarBootstrapper(bootstrap_config=dataclasses.replace(config_a))  # warns
+first.bootstrap()
+second.bootstrap()
+```
+
+```
+ImproperlyConfiguredException: 500: Handler already registered for path '/health' and http method OPTIONS
+```
+
+Nothing in that message points at the real mistake. The FastAPI equivalent is
+worse, because it does not fail at all: the second `bootstrap()` returns the
+same app object with its route count grown from 6 to 8 — a shadowed duplicate
+of the health-check and metrics routes, a second `PrometheusInstrument`
+registering against the same collector registry, and a second set of instrument
+state whose teardown is not wired to anything.
+
+The warning is emitted at construction, but the damage happens at `bootstrap()`,
+which is exactly where nothing checks.
+
+## Design
+
+`_attach_teardown_once` already detects the case; it just does not record it.
+Have it remember, and have `bootstrap()` refuse:
+
+```python
+# BaseBootstrapper
+_attach_skipped: bool = False
+```
+
+```python
+# BaseBootstrapper._attach_teardown_once
+def _attach_teardown_once(self, target: object, attach: typing.Callable[[], object]) -> None:
+    if getattr(target, self._TEARDOWN_MARKER, False):
+        warnings.warn(...)  # unchanged
+        self._attach_skipped = True
+        return
+    ...
+```
+
+```python
+# BaseBootstrapper.bootstrap
+def bootstrap(self) -> ApplicationT:
+    if self._attach_skipped:
+        msg = (
+            f"{type(self).__name__} shares its application with another lite-bootstrap "
+            f"bootstrapper, which has already applied its instruments. Construct one "
+            f"{type(self).__name__} per application."
+        )
+        raise ConfigurationError(msg)
+    ...
+```
+
+`ConfigurationError` already exists in `lite_bootstrap/exceptions.py` and is what
+`FastAPIConfig.__post_init__` raises for a comparable misuse.
+
+The construction-time warning stays, so the documented warn-and-skip invariant
+for the teardown seam is unchanged — this adds a second, louder gate at the
+point where instruments would actually be applied. `FreeBootstrapper` never
+calls `_attach_teardown_once`, so it is unaffected.
+
+The warning's wording needs a small update: it currently ends by saying this
+bootstrapper's teardown "will not run on shutdown", which understates the new
+behavior — the bootstrapper cannot be used at all.
+
+## Non-goals
+
+- Making instrument application idempotent so a second bootstrapper becomes
+  harmless. That means per-instrument state on user-supplied objects and a much
+  wider change; the supported model is one bootstrapper per application.
+- Letting the second `bootstrap()` warn and return the app unchanged. It would
+  hand back an app whose instruments were never applied and whose teardown is
+  not wired — a quieter trap than the one being fixed.
+- Detecting two bootstrappers built on two *different* `AppConfig` objects that
+  happen to share route paths. That is ordinary route-collision territory and
+  belongs to the framework.
+
+## Testing
+
+`just test -k "second_bootstrapper"`, extending the existing
+`test_second_<framework>_bootstrapper_on_same_*_warns_not_stacks` tests, which
+today stop at construction and never call `bootstrap()`:
+
+- Litestar: the second `bootstrap()` raises `ConfigurationError` naming the
+  bootstrapper class, and the first application still works (its health route
+  responds).
+- FastAPI: same, and the app's route count is unchanged by the failed second
+  bootstrap — the assertion that pins the silent-duplication half of the defect.
+- FastStream and FastMCP: same raise, since they share the seam.
+- `FreeBootstrapper`: two bootstrappers still work, since it has no attach
+  target. This pins that the guard did not overreach.
+
+Then `just lint-ci` and the full `just test`.
+
+## Risk
+
+**A caller today relies on double-bootstrapping.** Unlikely and already broken:
+on Litestar it raises, on FastAPI it produces shadowed duplicate routes. The
+release note should still call it out, since the FastAPI case currently
+"works".
+
+**The flag survives on a bootstrapper that could otherwise be reused.** Once
+`_attach_skipped` is set, that bootstrapper is permanently unusable. That is
+intended — the application it was given is owned by someone else, and nothing
+about that changes later.
+
+**Promotion:** `architecture/bootstrappers.md` records that the attach marker
+now gates instrument application as well as teardown attachment, and what the
+second bootstrapper gets.