# Roadmap

Source of truth for scope is [`CLAUDE.md`](../CLAUDE.md). This tracks sequencing.

## POC — the one question (charter §17)

> **Does bounded AI dialogue feel alive, or does it feel like a chatbot in a costume?**

Test that before building anything else. ~30 minutes of play.

### POC scope

- One town, **two NPCs** with authored knowledge lists
- One dungeon: **three fights, one boss**
- **Two companions:** Cadwyn, Brannoc
- **Three playable classes:** Sellsword, Assassin, Priest
- Luck fully wired: generation, drift, one shrine, one cursed item
- Full proxy, full role split, full canon log
- Authored fallback text for every AI surface

### Out of scope (charter §17)

AI-generated story skeletons · multiplayer (never) · mobile · credits/payments/auth · companions leaving · positional combat · more than three classes.

## Sequencing

Status: ✅ done · ▶ next · ○ planned. Each item is its own spec → plan → implementation cycle.
Each carries its **§2 side** (state = code owns it · text = AI owns it · both = it is two systems), what it **depends on**, and the **milestone goal** it advances.

The milestones are ordered to reach the POC's one question as early as possible, then build the game around a validated answer:

| Milestone | Goal it proves |
|---|---|
| **M0 — Foundations** ✅ | The contract and the client-side engine exist and are trustworthy. |
| **M1 — Prove the server loop** ✅ | A real model sits behind `/dm/narrate` and the pipeline is reusable. |
| **M2 — Prove aliveness** ✅ | **Does bounded AI dialogue feel alive?** — the whole POC question (§17). Build complete + live-proven; the *feel* is confirmed in playtest. |
| **M3 — Make it a game** ◀ *here* | The dialogue lives inside real stakes: a playable ~30-min dungeon slice. |
| **M4 — POC ship-readiness** | Every AI surface degrades with a voice, never an error (§13). |

---

### M0 — Foundations ✅
- ✅ **Canon log + origin JSON-Schema contract** — api validation, unified 422 envelope (Plan A). *§2: state · foundation.*
- ✅ **Client canon log engine** — typed GDScript model (invariants in the model), new-game construction (origin + world + creation → canon log), turn-to-turn maintenance mutators, pure `[FACT]`/`[MOVE]`/`[ADJUST_DISPOSITION]` tag extractor (Plan B). *§2: state · depends on the contract.*

### M1 — Prove the server loop ✅
- ✅ **Narrator / Ollama pipeline (server)** — the shared server-side model-call pipeline (Ollama httpx client, role→model routing config, prompt loader + canon-log digest renderer, §10 call logging, single-retry → typed 502) wired through `/dm/narrate`. Non-streaming. Both phases landed: **(1) pipeline foundation** (`config`/`routing`/`prompts`/`ollama_client`/`call_log`), **(2) Narrator online** (authored `narrator.md` body + `narrate` service + gated live smoke). Server returns raw prose; the client extracts tags. **The other four roles become thin drop-ins on this pipeline.** Live wire proven against qwen3.5; 49 tests. Merged to `dev` (`ddc00d4`). *§2: text · depends on the contract.*

### M2 — Prove aliveness ✅ *(the POC's one question — build complete + live-proven; the *feel* is confirmed in playtest)*
- ✅ **Client HTTP loop** — client posts its canon log to `/dm/narrate`, displays the prose, harvests `[FACT]` via its `TagExtractor` into its own log, and shows the degraded-DM authored fallback (§13) on any non-200. First end-to-end vertical slice: **state → HTTP → model → prose → screen → fact-harvest.** Pure `DmService` core behind an injectable transport seam; throwaway harness scene for the first on-screen prose. **Live-proven** against qwen3.5 through Docker (grounded scene prose, no numbers per §7). 67/67 client tests; merged to `dev` (`b949cd2`). Surfaced + fixed two Docker-dev gaps in M1 (prompts not packaged, no container→host-Ollama route) — M1's live proof had been venv-on-host only. *§2: state (client owns the loop, consumes text) · goal: put the Narrator on screen.*
- ✅ **Bounded NPC conversation** — `/npc/speak` with server-owned persona + `knowledge[]` (spoilers stay off the client) and client-computed `available_moves[]`; the client validates each emitted move against live state, applies the valid, silently drops the invalid, and always keeps the prose (§6). Server role is a thin drop-in on the M1 pipeline (`npc.run` mirrors `narrate.py`); the client added a pure `MoveValidator` (membership is the whole test) + a `MoveApplier` that writes town-NPC disposition to `GameState.npc_dispositions` (not the party log), plus `NpcContent.available_moves` as the single legality home. Free text goes straight to the NPC prompt (no Adjudicator needed — the moves are the NPC's). **Live-proven** against qwen3.5: Fenn answered in-voice, grounded strictly in his authored knowledge, no Luck leak (§7), with `reveal`/`offer_quest` moves landing. The live smoke also caught two real tag-format drifts a unit test can't — paren-less zero-arg moves and a dropped `MOVE:` prefix leaking into prose — both fixed by making `TagExtractor` tolerant/scrub-safe (backward-compatible; narrator path unaffected). Built on `feature/npc-conversation`; awaiting the human's `--no-ff` merge to `dev` (§18). *§2: both (text = the NPC's voice · state = the validated moves) · goal: answer the one question.*
- ✅ **Considering-state + transport timeout** — while a model call is in flight the client rotates authored in-character "the Master considers…" lines (§13 spirit — even *loading* is content; `ConsideringPhrases` + `ConsideringIndicator`, 3.0s cadence) instead of a frozen surface, and `HttpTransport` sets a request timeout (35s, rejects ≤0) so a hung call degrades to the authored fallback instead of spinning forever. Meets §14's anti-freeze *goal* by **reframing** the wait, on the *proven* non-streaming loop, with no new failure surface. **Human-confirmed live** including the degrade path (API down → fallback). Merged to `dev` (`099714d`); 110/110 client tests. *§2: text/UI · goal: the wait is framed (in-character) and bounded (never hangs).*
- ~~**Streaming** (§14)~~ — **SHELVED for the POC.** Real token streaming would genuinely *hide* the ~2s call, but it is the POC's largest transport rework (client `HTTPRequest` → poll-based `HTTPClient`) and adds mid-stream error/tag-boundary failure surface not worth the risk. The considering-state above reframes the wait instead and is tested and live. Design kept as a record (`specs/2026-07-10-narrator-streaming-design.md`, banner SHELVED); revive only if playtest proves the wait genuinely hurts. Conscious deviation from §14's "stream everything," recorded per §18.

### M3 — Make it a game ◀ *here — (the playable ~30-min slice — dungeon first, per the sequencing call)*
- ○ **Adjudicator** — `/dm/adjudicate`: free text → a legal action or an in-world rejection, **strict JSON** (§12), small/fast model, the one-retry-with-error-appended path. Unlocks the hybrid input model (§15) the playable slice needs — the "what do you do?" boundary. *§2: both (text = the in-world reason · state = the chosen action) · depends on the pipeline · goal: free-text world actions.*
- ○ **Combat** — deterministic, seeded per encounter from save state (§10); positionless turn-based; resource-management as the one interesting axis; Luck influences only crit thresholds + borderline status checks (§7). The dungeon: **three fights, one boss.** Combat flavor text is async, optional Narrator calls (reuses M1). "Ship the boring one" (§10) — mostly state work, low AI risk. *§2: state (flavor text = a thin AI layer on top) · depends on the pipeline for flavor · goal: real stakes.*
- ○ **Luck fully wired** — generation exists (Plan B); this adds **drift events** (sleeping in a real bed, a shrine's blessing, killing something praying), **one shrine**, **one cursed item** (e.g. +STR / −LCK). Visible only in prose, never as a number (§7). Gates the Improviser. *§2: state · depends on the item + event systems · goal: the signature system, live.*
- ○ **Improviser** — `/dm/improvise`: minor off-script events, **§7-sandboxed by construction** — output passes a validator that can only apply a whitelisted set of state changes (dignity, never progress; structurally incapable of ending a quest). Fires on Luck; hooks Cadwyn. *§2: both (text = the event · state = the whitelisted change) · depends on Luck being wired · goal: bad luck as a story, not a fine.*
- ○ **Banter** — `/party/banter`: companions comment on recent events; low stakes, high charm, **aggressively cacheable**; reads Brannoc's humiliation log (§9), stacking not overwriting. Prose only, no tags. The cheapest role, landed last. *§2: text · depends on the humiliation log (Plan B) + events to comment on · goal: the comedy loop closes.*

### M4 — POC ship-readiness
- ○ **Authored fallback text — full sweep** — every AI-dependent surface has authored fallback *content* (§13), written as writing, not error handling. Each role lands with its own fallback; this is the final pass that guarantees no surface can show the player an error. *§2: text · depends on every surface existing · goal: a degraded DM still has a voice.*

### Deferred beyond POC
Replicate provider (prod) · auth · metering · credits/payments (§4) — retrofit onto the pipeline later, the game doesn't notice. AI-generated story skeletons (v2 — the seeded story is authored for now).

#### NPC & relationship depth (v2)

Three ideas mined from [NarrativeEngine-P](https://github.com/Sagesheep/NarrativeEngine-P) (MIT) — design borrowed, not code. All three are **§2: state** (code owns them; the AI only voices from what code decides), so they strengthen the §2 boundary rather than loosen it. None is in POC scope (§17); they fold into the NPC role (§6) and canon log (§11) once bounded dialogue is proven alive. Sequence them after M3's Adjudicator, since they enrich the same conversation surface.

- ○ **Directional dispositions** — split the single per-pair disposition into two directed fields (A→B and B→A), so liking is asymmetric. Unrequited regard, undisclosed betrayal (player still trusts the captain who already sold them out), and the Cadwyn↔Brannoc mutual-but-differently-flavored dislike (§9) all become expressible. Player→NPC gates dialogue *tone*; NPC→player gates *offered moves* (§6 `available_moves`) — two arrows, two levers. Extends `party[]` in the canon log (§11) and `npc_dispositions` on the client; keep the −100..100 range, just double the field. *§2: state · depends on the disposition model existing (M2, done) · goal: relationships that aren't symmetric.*
- ○ **Witness tracking** — every logged event carries a `witnesses: [...]` list; a fact enters an NPC's `knowledge[]` (§6) only if they witnessed it or a witness told them. This is the missing **input-side rule** for the knowledge list — CLAUDE.md §6 says the list is "the entire content the NPC has to draw on" but never says how a fact gets *in*. Structurally prevents the blacksmith spoiling a twist he never saw, gives shady acts real "were you seen?" stakes without a stealth system, and turns rumor spread into a code operation (witness meets NPC → code copies the fact, optionally degraded) rather than AI invention. Adds a field to `recent_events[]`/`established_facts[]` (§11) and a propagation rule on character encounters. *§2: state · depends on the canon log event model (M0, done) + knowledge lists (§6) · goal: NPCs know only what they could plausibly know.*
- ○ **Personality Hexagon persona** — a richer NPC persona schema: six axes (Drive, Diligence, Boldness, Warmth, Empathy, Composure) supplied to the NPC prompt (§6) as structured voice-shaping input, replacing free-form persona blurbs. Server-owned (like `knowledge[]`), so it never ships to the client. Purely additive to the §6 prompt contract — it steers *how* an NPC speaks, not *what* it may do (the move vocabulary is unchanged). *§2: state (the schema) feeding text (the voice) · depends on the NPC role (M2, done) · goal: consistent, distinct NPC voices from data, not prose.*