Roadmap

Phase 1: documentation and contracts (completed)

Define the architecture, configuration, startup output, logging, agent manifest, storage modes, tool metadata, job behavior, and deployment model.

Phase 2: CLI and template (completed)

Implement arqen new, arqen start, arqen dev, health endpoints, startup output, structured logs, and a generated public README.

Phase 3: thingd development mode (completed)

Add in-memory thingd storage, repositories, events, search, links, queues, fixtures, and the HTTP thingd adapter.

Phase 4: tools and workers (completed)

Add typed tools, manifests, authorization metadata, durable jobs, retries, idempotency, dead letters, and graceful worker shutdown.

Phase 5: deployment (completed)

Add Docker generation, Compose, deployment guides, readiness checks, and arqen doctor.

Phase 6: reference applications (completed)

Build small examples and a Watchloom-shaped reference backend without coupling Arqen to Watchloom.

Phase 7: optional cloud adapter (blocked)

Integrate with a future public thingd-cloud customer API while preserving the direct thingd adapter.

Current framework hardening (implemented, deployment validation ongoing)

The current single-package framework also includes layered configuration, stable error contracts, authentication, request validation, health/readiness, testing utilities, observability, OpenAPI helpers, and explicit module composition. These capabilities are tested in the arqen package, but production readiness still depends on the target application, thingd deployment, security review, recovery testing, and operational controls.

Phase 17: developer experience, performance, and agent onboarding (completed)

Stable CLI with exit codes, JSON output, config discovery, and integration tests. Compiling project generation. Criterion benchmarks for routing, manifest, validation, in-memory thingd, jobs, and health. Prettier and Markdownlint tooling. Comprehensive documentation for first-time developers and coding agents.

Phase 18: application hardening and cloud boundary (planned)

Prioritize reusable production guarantees for thingd-backed applications: typed tenant/instance request context, scoped storage helpers, optimistic concurrency, durable idempotency, JWKS and public cloud customer API support, thingd sync capability integration, cursor-based event consumption, hardened HTTP adapter behavior, separate worker roles, production configuration guardrails, cursor pagination, schema/version envelopes, and exporter hooks.

The sync protocol and replication engine remain owned by thingd. Arqen only provides the application/runtime integration boundary. HTTP replication is supported now; native embedded-engine replication remains gated on Thingd's public Rust contract.

See application-hardening.md for scope and boundary rules. This phase must not introduce Watchloom-specific domain types or depend on private thingd-cloud modules.