The most common way is to apply the extension via Config. Example:
# File: mysite/_config/config.yml Member: extensions: - MyMemberExtension
The extensions
config variable is of type "array", so you can add multiple extensions like this:
# File: mysite/_config/config.yml Member: extensions: - MyMemberExtension - MyOtherMemberExtension
If you wrote the class that is to be extended, you can define the extension(s) as static variable:
<?php class MyClass extends DataObject { private static $extensions = ['MyCustomExtension']; }