roadmap

Content scope by release. Timeline is ordering + dependencies, not dates.

v1 — Pack-based orchestrator, stable core

Ships all 7 philosophy principles (see goals.md).

Core always compiled

Manifest (JSONL intent log).
Lockfile (JSONL resolved state).
Scheduler (tokio + bounded semaphore + per-pack .grex-lock + fd-lock).
Sync engine (git clone/pull, recursion).
Gitignore automation (managed-block markers).
MCP stdio JSON-RPC server.
Pack discovery (.grex/pack.yaml).
Action plugin registry + 7 built-in actions.
Pack-type plugin registry + 3 built-in pack-types.
Atomic file writes (temp + rename).
Lean4 proof Grex.Scheduler.no_double_lock.

Frozen public APIs

.grex/pack.yaml schema (v1).
grex.jsonl event schema.
grex.lock.jsonl schema.
ActionPlugin trait.
PackTypePlugin trait.
Fetcher trait.
CLI verb surface (12 verbs).
MCP method surface (1:1 with CLI).

Explicitly NOT in v1

External plugin loading.
TUI.
Non-git fetchers.
Additional pack-types / actions beyond the built-ins.
Pack registry.
Self-update.

Exit criteria: all success criteria in the feature spec PASS in CI matrix; crates.io publish successful; reference pack repo installs cleanly.

v2 — Extensibility & aesthetics

Opens third-party extension; adds TUI + non-git fetchers.

External plugin loading

Two candidate routes evaluated in v2 alpha:

Dylib (libloading + abi_stable): native speed, strict ABI versioning.
WASM (wasmtime / extism): sandboxed, forward-compatible, syscall bridging required.

Decision in v2 alpha; both may ship (host selects by file extension).

Retro-futurist TUI

ratatui-based dashboard, feature-flagged --features tui. Live pack tree, per-pack sync stream, lock inspector, CRT glyph aesthetic. Falls back to plain ANSI when --plain or non-TTY.

Additional pack-types (via plugin)

software-list — iterates package installs (winget/brew/apt).
env-bundle — manages a coherent group of env vars + PATH entries.
dotfiles — dotfile-manager style: iterate + symlink.

Additional actions (via plugin)

pkg-install, url-download, archive-extract, file-append, patch, json-merge, template, path-add, shell-rc-inject.

Additional Lean4 proofs

I2: manifest append serialization under fd-lock.
I3: .gitignore managed-block idempotence.
I4: compaction fold-equivalence.
Commutativity of disjoint-path events.

SQLite optional backend

Feature flag sqlite. Same Manifest API. For users with >100k events.

Self-update

grex upgrade pulls latest release from GitHub.

Embedded scripting

Lua or Rhai in-process scripting — middle ground between declarative YAML and full shell escape. Candidate for a pack-type plugin in v2.

Non-git fetchers

rclone, s3, oci, http — all implement the Fetcher trait. grex add accepts --scheme <rclone|s3|...> or auto-detects from URL.

v3+ — Scale & federation

Exploratory. No commitments yet.

Pack registry (grex.dev) — hosted index of discoverable packs.
Rules engine — .rules.yaml per pack, enforced on add/sync (modeled after metarepo's rules plugin).
Org-level federation — multiple top-level workspaces referencing each other.
Interactive HTTP dashboard — grex serve --http with web UI.
Distributed locking — optional consul/etcd for multi-host deployments.
p2p fetchers — IPFS, BitTorrent.
Supply-chain signing — pack signatures; registry-enforced integrity.

Non-roadmap (never)

Cross-VCS support (hg, svn, fossil, perforce).
Monorepo conversion tooling.
Git replacement.
Generic CI runner.
Full .gitmodules semantic replacement.

Dependency ordering (cross-release)

v1 (frozen APIs)
  └─► v2 external plugin loading
        └─► v2 additional pack-types + actions (as plugins)
        └─► v2 non-git fetchers (via Fetcher trait impls)
  └─► v2 TUI (independent)
  └─► v2 SQLite backend (independent)
  └─► v3 pack registry (needs plugin signing story)

grex documentation