# Marlin Roadmap 2025 → 2026 📜 This document outlines the **official delivery plan** for Marlin over the next four quarters. Every work-item below is *time-boxed, testable,* and traceable back to an end-user benefit. > **Legend** > ✅ = item added/clarified in the latest planning round > Δ = new sub-deliverable (wasn’t in the previous version) --- ## 1 Bird’s-eye Table | Phase / Sprint | Timeline | Focus & Rationale | Key Deliverables (Δ = new) | | | | ----------------------------------------------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Sprint α – Bedrock & Metadata Domains** | **2025-Q2 (now → 6 Jun)** | Stabilise schema & CI; land first metadata domains with discoverability. | Δ CI: `cargo test` + SQL dry-run
Δ Unit tests (`determine_scan_root`, `escape_fts`)
Δ Coverage: e2e `attr --format=json`
Δ Refactor: move `naive_substring_search` to shared util
Migrations: `links`, `collections`, `views`
CLI stubs: `link`, `coll`, `view`
`marlin demo` walkthrough | | | | **Epic 1 – Scale & Reliability** | 2025-Q2 | Keep scans fast; bullet-proof CI at 100 k files. | Δ Dirty-flag column + `scan --dirty`
Benchmarks: full vs dirty scan (100 k)
Replace per-row triggers with periodic rebuild
CI edge-case tests | | | | **Epic 2 – Live Mode & Self-Pruning Backups** | 2025-Q2 | Continuous indexing & hygiene—Marlin “just works”. | Δ `marlin watch [dir]` (notify/FSEvents)
Δ `backup --prune ` + auto-prune post-scan
Daily / PR-merge prune in CI | | | | **Phase 3 – Content FTS & Annotations** | 2025-Q3 | Index file bodies, grep-style context, inline notes. | `files.content` + migration
Extend `files_fts` (context snippets `-C`)
`annotations` table + triggers
CLI \`annotate add | list\` | | | **Phase 4 – Versioning & Deduplication** | 2025-Q3 | History, diffs & duplicate detection. | `files.hash` (SHA-256)
`scan --rehash` refresh
CLI `version diff ` | | | | **Phase 5 – Tag Aliases & Semantic Booster** | 2025-Q3 | Tame tag sprawl; seed AI-powered suggestions. | `canonical_id` on `tags`; CLI `tag alias …`
`embeddings` table + `scan --embed`
CLI `tag suggest`, `similarity scan`, `summary ` | | | | **Phase 6 – Search DSL v2 & Smart Views** | 2025-Q4 | Robust grammar + virtual folders. | Replace parser with **`nom`** grammar (`AND`, `OR`, `()` …)
CLI \`view save | list | exec\` with aliases & paging | | **Phase 7 – Structured Workflows** | 2025-Q4 | First-class task / state / reminder / event life-cycles. | ✅ State engine (`files.state`, `state_changes`)
CLI \`state set | transitions add | log`
✅ Task extractor (`tasks` table) + CLI
`templates`+ validation
CLI`remind …`, `event …`, `timeline\` | | **Phase 8 – Lightweight Integrations** | 2026-Q1 | Surface Marlin in editors / terminal. | VS Code & TUI extension (tags / attrs / links / notes) | | | | **Phase 9 – Dolphin Sidebar Plugin (MVP)** | 2026-Q1 | Read-only Qt sidebar for Linux file managers. | Qt plug-in: tags, attrs, links, annotations | | | | **Phase 10 – Full Edit UI & Multi-Device Sync** | 2026-Q2 | In-place metadata editor & optional sync layer. | GUI editors (tags, views, tasks, reminders, events)
Pick/implement sync backend (rqlite, Litestream, …) | | | --- ## 2 Narrative & Dependencies 1. **Lock down core schema & demo** *(Sprint α).* Developers get immediate feedback via the `marlin demo` command while CI ensures migrations never regress. 2. **Scale & Live Mode** *(Epics 1-2).* Dirty scanning, file-watching and auto-pruned backups guarantee snappy, hands-off operation even on six-figure corpora. 3. **Richer Search** *(Phases 3-6).* Body-content FTS + grep-style snippets lay the groundwork; `nom` grammar then elevates power-user queries and smart views. 4. **Workflow Layers** *(Phase 7).* State transitions, tasks and reminders turn Marlin from a passive index into an active workflow engine. 5. **UX Expansions** *(Phases 8-10).* Start lightweight (VS Code / TUI), graduate to a read-only Dolphin plug-in, then ship full editing & sync for multi-device teams. Every outer milestone depends only on the completion of the rows above it, **so shipping discipline in early sprints de-risks the headline features down the line.** --- ## 3 Next Steps * **Sprint α kickoff:** break deliverables into stories, estimate, assign. * **Add roadmap as `docs/ROADMAP.md`** (this file). * Wire a **Checklist issue** on GitHub: one task per Δ bullet for instant tracking. --- *Last updated · 2025-05-16*