Marlin/roadmap.md

Roadmap

Phase	Focus	Why now?	Key deliverables
1. 2025-Q2 – “Bedrock”	Migrations + CI baseline	We’ve landed versioned migrations and removed runtime column hacks – ensure it stays solid.	• CI job runs cargo test + cargo sqlx migrate run --dry-run
2. 2025-Q2	Leaner FTS maintenance	Per-row triggers don’t scale past ~100 k files.	• Replace triggers with “dirty” flag + periodic rebuild • Benchmark on 100 k files
2.1 2025-Q2 (adjunct)	Dirty-row FTS + CI	Prep for both scale and live-watcher—avoid full rebuilds on every change.	• scan --dirty reindexes only files whose SHA-256 hash has changed
2.2 2025-Q2	Live file watching	Offer a true “working-dir” mode—auto-scan on FS events, zero manual rescans.	• New marlin watch [dir] subcommand using notify crate • Incremental scans on create/delete/modify/rename events
2.3 2025-Q2	Self-pruning backups	Instant protection and bounded storage—no manual snapshot cleanup.	• marlin backup --prune <N> flag • Hook post-scan (when rows change) to auto-prune to latest 10 • Daily cron/automation to keep last 7
3. 2025-Q3	Content hashing & dedup	Detect duplicates, enable future integrity checks.	• SHA-256 in files.hash • scan --rehash option
4. 2025-Q3	Tag aliases / canonicals	Control tag sprawl before users accumulate thousands.	• canonical_id enforcement • `tag alias add
5. 2025-Q4	Search DSL v2	Power users want grouping, boolean ops, quoted phrases.	• Replace ad-hoc parser with nom grammar • Unit-tested examples
6. 2025-Q4	Attribute templates	Structured metadata unlocks real workflows.	• templates + template_fields tables • Validation on attr set
7. 2026-Q1	Dolphin read-only plugin	Browse tags/attrs inside the default file manager.	• Qt sidebar showing metadata
8. 2026-Q1	Full edit UI	After read-only proves stable, add editing.	• Tag editor widget, attribute dialog
9. 2026-Q2	Multi-device sync	Final frontier: optional sync/replication layer.	• Choose between rqlite / Litestream / bespoke • Read-only mode for network mounts

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Current sprint (ends 2025-06-01)

1. FTS rebuild prototype – dirtied-rows approach, measure on 50 k files.
2. backup --prune to keep only N most recent snapshots.
3. Integration tests for tag/attr workflows on Windows via GitHub Actions.

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Development principles

• Local-first – every feature must work offline.
• Zero manual migrations – shipping code is the migration.
• Instrumentation first – every new command logs trace spans and timings.