AILang/docs/roadmap.md

AILang Roadmap

Priority-ordered list of upcoming work — milestones, features, todos, and ideas. The orchestrator maintains this file. The user can request additions; the orchestrator chooses what to remove or reprioritise as work progresses.

Conventions

• One checkbox per entry. - [ ] is open; - [~] is in progress (work has started — a plan exists, a branch is open, or commits are landing); - [x] is done. A finished entry may stay briefly for context, then is removed (with a one-line mirror in docs/JOURNAL.md).
• Each entry is tagged by kind and lives under a priority bucket:
  • [milestone] — big chunk that will get a docs/specs/<milestone>.md.
  • [feature] — smaller addition inside a milestone, no full spec.
  • [todo] — concrete task that can run without a brainstorm (cleanup, doc fix, mechanical refactor, test backfill).
  • [idea] — not yet decision-ready, no commitment.
• Optional depends on: line names another entry that has to land first.
• Optional context: line points to the JOURNAL entry where the rationale lives. The roadmap is intentionally terse; rationale stays in JOURNAL.
• Priority buckets:
  • P0 — in flight. Spec or plan already exists.
  • P1 — next up. Decision made; not yet started.
  • P2 — medium-term. Decided in principle, scheduled later.
  • P3 — ideas. No commitment; may be cut.

P0 — In flight

• [~] [milestone] design-md-consolidation — docs/DESIGN.md becomes a state-only specification across four thematic sweeps (history anchors out, migration plans out, schema-SoT inversion + data-model hardening, workflow / cross-reference cleanup).
  • context: docs/specs/2026-05-10-design-md-consolidation.md
  • sub-entries:
    • [~] Sweep 1 — remove history anchors (docs/plans/2026-05-10-design-md-consolidation-1-history-anchors.md; tasks 1-3 of 6 landed)
    • Sweep 2 — REVERTED + migration plans out
    • Sweep 3 — schema SoT inversion + data-model hardening
    • Sweep 4 — workflow / cross-reference cleanup

P1 — Next

• [milestone] Post-22 Prelude — ship Show / Eq / Ord with the four primitive instances (Int, Bool, Str, Float); rewire print through Show.show. Originally queued as 22b.4 in the typeclass milestone, kept on hold pending demand.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-09 ("JOURNAL queue")
  • depends on: design-md-consolidation (touches DESIGN.md schema sections that the consolidation will reshape)

P2 — Medium-term

• [feature] Operator routing through Eq / Ord — ==, < etc. resolved via the typeclass instead of the built-in primitive comparators. No commitment; gated on bench re-baselining to make sure the indirection doesn't tank latency.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-09
  • depends on: Post-22 Prelude
• [todo] types / ctor_index overlay shape question — decide whether the env's two parallel ctor maps should collapse into one overlay, or stay split. Surfaced during the env-construction unify audit.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-10 ("Audit close: env-construction unify")
• [feature] 22c — typeclass corpus expansion. User-defined classes beyond the prelude four; multi-parameter classes; superclass chains; richer instance bodies. Deferred from milestone 22.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-09
• [todo] Boehm full retirement — remove the transitional Boehm GC path now that RC + uniqueness is the canonical memory story.
  • context: JOURNAL pre-22, "Boehm transitional"
• [feature] Closure-pair slab / pool — codegen tweak to pool the env+code closure pairs instead of one-shot heap allocs. Bench-gated.
• [todo] FnDef::synthetic flag — formalise the monomorphiser-emitted FnDefs so downstream passes can tell user-authored from synthesised at a glance. Currently inferred from symbol naming.
• [todo] 21'h iteration — final 21' carry-over (latency methodology pass). Numbering kept for continuity with the 21' arc.

P3 — Ideas

• [idea] Latency methodology rework — switch from per-run timing to a histogram-based approach so tail-latency regressions are visible without re-running. Queued from 21'g.
• [idea] Parser-test backfill for 22b.4a-era duplicate-clause sites (class × 3, class method × 2, instance × 3, instance method × 1). No regression pin today; only worth it if a 22b.4a-era diagnostic needs to change.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-10 ("Iteration 22-tidy.7")
• [idea] write_type Type::Forall arm in crates/ailang-prose/src/lib.rs silently drops constraints in inline-type rendering. Dormant — surface forms today only carry forall at fn-signature top level. Fix only if a future feature carries forall + constraints inline.
  • context: JOURNAL 2026-05-10 ("Iteration 22-tidy.6")
• [idea] Richer integration paths between RC and uniqueness — deferred from the 21' arc; revisit once the uniqueness inference covers more program shapes.