swarm-house/docs/08-roadmap.md

08 — Roadmap

From simple to complex, ordered by dependency — each stage is independently useful and validates the next. The guiding principle: build the environment that makes everything else testable first.

Dependency graph

graph TD
    S1["Stage 1<br/>Dev environment + CI skeleton<br/>Dev Containers, GitLab templates, multi-arch builds"]
    S2["Stage 2<br/>Registry and artifacts<br/>images, model weights, schemas, cleanup policies"]
    S3["Stage 3<br/>Single-drone data pipeline<br/>ingest → current/ → sealed Parquet → DuckDB"]
    S4["Stage 4<br/>Serving layer<br/>event hook, query API"]
    S5["Stage 5<br/>Virtual swarm simulation<br/>N drones in Compose, seeded scenarios, CI regression"]
    S6["Stage 6<br/>Mesh network and security<br/>WireGuard overlay, PKI provisioning, mTLS"]
    S7["Stage 7<br/>Swarm sync<br/>pose broadcast, detections pub/sub, bulk pull"]
    S8["Stage 8<br/>Ground warehouse<br/>offload + audit, MinIO T3, replay tooling"]
    S9["Stage 9<br/>Observability<br/>platform metrics as sensor stream, ground dashboards"]
    S10["Stage 10<br/>Fleet releases<br/>manifest, mirror, dock delivery, atomic rollback"]
    S11["Stage 11<br/>Query standard<br/>GraphQL contract, schema registry, multi-team surface"]

    S1 --> S2
    S1 --> S3
    S2 --> S5
    S3 --> S4
    S4 --> S5
    S5 --> S7
    S6 --> S7
    S3 --> S8
    S7 --> S9
    S8 --> S9
    S2 --> S10
    S5 --> S10
    S8 --> S11
    S7 --> S11

Stage detail

Stage	Deliverable	Proves	Depends on
1 — Dev environment + CI skeleton	Dev Containers, GitLab shared templates, multi-arch runner fleet	An engineer builds and tests on day one; ARM64/AMD64 both green	—
2 — Registry & artifacts	GitLab registry live, model weights + schemas as versioned packages	One artifact store, scanning wired in (Trivy, SonarQube)	1
3 — Single-drone data pipeline	sensor-ingest → writer → current/ → sealed → DuckDB queries on one node	The storage core: rates sustained, compression measured, quotas enforced	1
4 — Serving layer	Event hook + query API (SQL gate)	Event-driven consumption; nothing polls	3
5 — Virtual swarm	Simulator, N drones via Compose, seeded scenarios, CI regression gate	Everything after this ships with a test bench	2, 4
6 — Mesh & security	WireGuard overlay, offline CA, provisioning flow, mTLS	Zero-trust fabric exists before any real sync traffic	1
7 — Swarm sync	Pose broadcast + detections pub/sub + bulk partition pull	Staleness budgets met under simulated loss/partitions	5, 6
8 — Ground warehouse	Dock offload (mirror + audit), MinIO as T3, replay queries	A full flight round-trips: fly (simulated) → offload → replay	3
9 — Observability	Platform metrics as sensor stream; ground Prometheus/Grafana/Loki; post-mortem dashboards	Every health question from 07 answerable	7, 8
10 — Fleet releases	Release manifest, registry mirror, dock delivery, atomic rollback drill	The whole fleet moves as one version, rollback rehearsed	2, 5
11 — Query standard	GraphQL contract over versioned schemas; documentation for other teams	The multi-team integration surface	7, 8

Sequencing rationale

• Stages 1–2 before everything: unglamorous, but every later stage is only as fast as its build/test loop.
• Stage 3 is the heart — and it needs no network, no security, no swarm: a single machine and real (or simulated) sensor rates. Risk is retired early where iteration is cheapest.
• Stage 5 before sync (7): building a distributed protocol without a reproducible multi-node bench means debugging it in the field. The virtual swarm makes stage 7 a CI problem instead.
• Stage 6 in parallel: the trust fabric has no dependency on the data path and can mature alongside it.
• Stages 8–11 stack on a proven core — by then, every layer under them is regression-tested.