It seems a "reasonable default" based on the expected behaviour of developers and browser VMs : ) Yes, this number needs to be properly exposed and also shared with the "overflow" strategy in makeExpandStrategy which currently still uses the "old-fashioned" and unreliable method of detecting circularity based on repeated discovery of component ids. Although overflow is now very unlikely during expansion since all of the routes where double expansion was possible are believed plugged. It is still possible in the very unlikely event somebody manages to succeed in getting some circularly linked configuration where some expandable configuration is expected.