Roadmap¶

This roadmap outlines the planned development of Alopex DB from the current alpha state to production readiness.

Current Status¶

Timeline¶

gantt
    title Alopex DB Development Timeline
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM
    axisFormat  %Y-%m

    section Foundation
    v0.1 Embedded Core       :done, 2025-01, 2025-11
    v0.2 Vector Core (Flat)  :active, 2025-11, 2026-01

    section SQL & Server
    v0.3 SQL Frontend        :2026-01, 2026-02
    v0.4 Server + HNSW       :2026-02, 2026-04
    v0.5 Durability          :2026-04, 2026-05

    section WASM
    v0.6 WASM Viewer         :2026-05, 2026-06

    section Distributed
    v0.7 Cluster-aware       :2026-06, 2026-08
    v0.8 Metadata Raft       :2026-08, 2026-10
    v0.9 Multi-Raft          :2026-10, 2026-12

    section Production
    v0.10 Hardening          :2027-01, 2027-02
    v1.0 GA                  :milestone, 2027-03, 0d

v0.1 — Embedded KV Core¶

Status: Complete Released: November 2025

The foundation release with embedded KV storage, transactions, and columnar foundations.

Completed Features¶

• LSM-Tree storage engine
• Write-Ahead Log (WAL) with crash recovery
• Key-Value API (open/put/get/delete)
• Transactions (begin/commit/rollback)
• MVCC with Snapshot Isolation
• Concurrent access (multi-thread safe)
• Columnar segment layout design
• Streaming read/write with backpressure
• Large value (BLOB) chunked storage

Acceptance Criteria Met¶

Criterion	Status
DB open with defaults
Transaction consistency
WAL durability
Rollback correctness
Read-only transaction errors
Crash recovery via WAL
2-thread concurrency
Streaming O(chunk) memory

v0.2 — Vector Core (Flat Search)¶

Status: In Progress Target: January 2026

Adding vector type and flat (brute-force) similarity search.

Features¶

• Vector type (VECTOR(dimension))
• Flat search (cosine, L2, inner product)
• Vector upsert/search API
• Metadata filtering with vectors
• Columnar compression implementation
• KV + Vector unified transactions

Acceptance Criteria¶

• Top-K precision validation
• KV + Vector same-transaction consistency
• Benchmark baseline established
• Columnar compression roundtrip verified

v0.3 — Local SQL Frontend¶

Status: Planned Target: February 2026

SQL parser and execution for embedded mode.

Features¶

• SQL parser (based on sqlparser-rs)
• DDL: CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE
• DML: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
• SQL → Core mapping
• Embedded SQL + Vector interface

SQL Preview¶

CREATE TABLE documents (
    id TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
    content TEXT,
    embedding VECTOR(384)
);

SELECT id, content, cosine_similarity(embedding, ?) as score
FROM documents
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10;

v0.4 — Single-Node Server + HNSW¶

Status: Planned Target: April 2026

Standalone server with network APIs and HNSW indexing.

Features¶

• alopex-server binary
• HTTP REST API
• gRPC API
• HNSW vector index
• alopex-cli client
• Basic authentication
• Connection pooling

v0.5 — Durability & Reliability¶

Status: Planned Target: May 2026

Enhanced crash recovery and observability.

Features¶

• WAL/crash recovery hardening
• Backup and restore
• Prometheus metrics
• Structured logging

v0.6 — WASM Edition (Read-Only Viewer)¶

Status: Planned Target: June 2026

Browser-based read-only viewer for database snapshots.

Features¶

• wasm32-unknown-unknown target
• Pre-built SSTable loader
• IndexedDB caching
• SQL SELECT only
• Vector Search (Flat only)
• npm package (@alopex-db/wasm)

Limitations¶

Feature	Supported
SELECT queries
INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE
Transactions
HNSW search

Usage Preview¶

import { AlopexViewer } from '@alopex-db/wasm';

const viewer = await AlopexViewer.loadSnapshot('/data/snapshot.alopex');
const results = await viewer.query('SELECT * FROM products LIMIT 10');

v0.7 — Cluster-Aware Alopex¶

Status: Planned Target: August 2026

Depends on: Chirps v0.3 (complete)

First cluster integration using Chirps for membership.

Features¶

• alopex-cluster module
• Chirps membership integration
• Node discovery and events
• Logical sharding design
• Control/Ephemeral profiles only

v0.8 — Distributed Metadata & Raft¶

Status: Planned Target: October 2026

Depends on: Chirps v0.4 (Raft-ready transport)

Raft consensus for metadata and single data range.

Features¶

• Metadata Raft Group (raft-rs)
• Chirps priority streams for Raft
• Single Data Range Raft (PoC)
• Shard/range metadata management
• Control profile for Raft messages

v0.9 — Multi-Raft + CRDT¶

Status: Planned Target: December 2026

Depends on: Chirps v0.7+ (IggyBackend)

Full distributed capabilities with Multi-Raft and CRDT.

Features¶

• Multi-Raft (range partitioning)
• CRDT (Counter, Set for eventual consistency)
• Changefeed via Durable profile
• 3-5 node clusters
• Distributed transactions
• Cluster monitor CLI

Consistency Modes¶

-- Strong consistency (Raft)
CREATE TABLE orders (...) WITH (consistency = 'strong');

-- Eventual consistency (CRDT Counter)
CREATE TABLE metrics (...) WITH (consistency = 'eventual', crdt_type = 'counter');

v0.10 — Hardening & Freeze¶

Status: Planned Target: February 2027

Stability testing and API freeze.

Goals¶

• Single-node regression suite
• Cluster consistency tests
• Partition/recovery tests
• Configuration freeze
• API stability guarantee

v1.0 — Production Ready¶

Status: Planned Target: Q1 2027

General availability release.

Features¶

• 3-10 node production support
• Rolling upgrades
• Backup/restore procedures
• Complete documentation
• Tutorials and best practices
• API/ABI compatibility tests

Chirps Roadmap¶

Alopex Chirps (cluster messaging layer) has its own development track:

Version	Status	Features
v0.1-v0.3	Complete	Gossip, SWIM, Membership API
v0.4	Planned	Raft-ready transport, priority streams
v0.5	Planned	Performance optimization
v0.6	Planned	Observability, admin API
v0.7+	Planned	IggyBackend, Durable profile

Future Considerations¶

Features being considered for post-1.0 releases:

v1.1+¶

• Full-text search integration
• Time-series optimizations
• Materialized views
• Graph queries

v2.0¶

• Multi-tenancy
• Serverless mode
• Auto-scaling
• ML integration

Contributing¶

We welcome contributions! Priority areas:

Contributing Guide

Changelog¶

Recent Updates¶

• 2025-11: v0.1 Embedded KV Core complete
• 2025-11: Chirps v0.3 complete (Gossip, SWIM, Membership)
• 2025-11: Columnar storage design finalized
• 2025-03: Initial embedded KV demo
• 2025-01: Repository created

For detailed changes, see the GitHub Releases.