lattice/docs/roadmap.md

Lattice Roadmap

Milestone 1: Single-Node Append-Only Log

Goal: A single node can create, sign, and persist entries to its own log. No networking yet.

Deliverables

• HLC timestamps
• Node identity (Ed25519 keypair, save/load)
• Entry signing & verification
• Log file I/O (append, read, hash verification)
• SigChain (validate entries before appending)
• Store (redb) — kv + meta tables, log replay
• Interactive CLI: init, put, get, delete, status, quit

Success Criteria

• Can create a new identity
• Can append entries to local log
• Can replay log to reconstruct KV state
• All operations survive restart

Multi-KV Refactoring (before M2) ✓

• DataDir → stores/{uuid}/ subdirectories
• Store → per-store state.db
• Log paths → stores/{uuid}/logs/{author}.log
• Proto: Entry has store_id (UUID)
• CLI → init, create-store, list-stores, use
• meta.db stores table (MetaStore)
• SigChain → validate entry.store_id

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Milestone 1.5: DAG Conflict Resolution

Goal: Upgrade store from simple LWW to DAG-based conflict resolution per architecture.md.

Deliverables

• Proto: Add repeated bytes parent_hashes to Entry (for DAG causality)
• Proto: Add HeadInfo message for multi-head storage
• Store: KV table schema → Vec<u8> → Vec<HeadInfo>
• Store: apply_entry → track multiple heads, merge parent tips
• Store: get → deterministic winner (highest HLC, author tiebreaker)
• Store: get_heads → inspect all heads for a key
• EntryBuilder: .parent_hashes(...) method for DAG ancestry
• CLI: Show conflict indicator when multiple heads

Success Criteria

• Concurrent writes to same key create multiple heads
• Reads return deterministic winner
• Next write citing both heads merges fork to single tip
• All existing tests still pass (71 tests)

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Milestone 1.9: Async Refactor

Goal: Prepare codebase for concurrent CLI + network operation.

Deliverables

Phase 1: Store Actor (sync) ✓

• Store actor pattern: dedicated thread owns Store, receives commands via std::sync::mpsc
• StoreHandle wraps channel sender, keeps current API
• Validate: CLI works as before with actor

Phase 2: Async Runtime

• Add tokio runtime (#[tokio::main])
• Migrate std::sync::mpsc → tokio::sync::mpsc
• Async CLI using tokio::io::stdin() or rustyline async

Success Criteria

• CLI still works as before
• Store operations serialized (no data races)
• Ready for concurrent network tasks

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Milestone 2: Two-Node Sync

Goal: Two nodes can sync their logs over the network.

Deliverables

• VectorClock module (diff, merge, missing entries)
• Sync protocol (push missing entries)
• Iroh integration (peer discovery, connection)
• Multi-author log merging
• CLI: peers, connect/join commands
• Background sync task (tokio::spawn)

Success Criteria

• Node A writes, Node B syncs, both have same state
• Works offline-first (sync when connected)

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Milestone 3: Multi-Node Mesh

Goal: N nodes form a gossip mesh with watermark consensus.

Deliverables

• Gossip protocol
• Watermark tracking & log pruning
• Node invitation (sigchain membership)
• Conflict detection (LWW resolution)

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Future

• Mobile (iOS/Android) clients
• Key rotation
• Secure storage (Keychain, TPM)
• Snapshots for fast bootstrap
• FUSE filesystem mount
  • Note: FUSE requires u64 inode numbers → maintain BiMap<u64, Hash> in redb
• Merkle-ized State
  • state.db as Merkle tree with signed root hash
  • O(1) sync checks (compare root), efficient binary-search diffing
  • Light clients: fetch value + Merkle proof, verify without full state
  • Trade-off: write amplification, requires deterministic tree (Patricia Trie / Merkle Search Tree)