1.0.0 Roadmap

This plan is ordered to get Colonel from a solid beta-style core to a stable first 1.0 release. Each milestone has clear dependencies and a practical exit criterion.

Status

  • Milestone 1: Completed
  • Milestone 2: Completed
  • Milestone 3: Completed
  • Milestone 4: Completed

Milestone 1: Core HTTP Stability

Goal: finish the request lifecycle so the framework has a predictable, production-ready HTTP surface.

Tasks:

  • Add a middleware pipeline with explicit ordering and short-circuit support.
  • Add first-class request validation or form request support.
  • Add standardized error handling for 404, 500, and controller exceptions.
  • Expand response helpers for HTML, JSON, redirects, and error responses.

Depends on:

  • Existing router, kernel, and session behavior remaining stable.

Exit criteria:

  • Requests flow through middleware in a documented order.
  • Invalid requests and runtime failures produce predictable responses.
  • Common controller responses no longer require repetitive manual boilerplate.

Milestone 2: Developer Experience And Safety Nets

Goal: make the framework easier to debug, safer to extend, and harder to misconfigure.

Tasks:

  • Add better startup diagnostics for bad routes, missing controllers, and invalid view references.
  • Add integration tests for nested routes, sessions, and view rendering.
  • Add scaffold smoke tests that create a project and start it successfully.
  • Add template/example parity checks so the generated app stays aligned with the reference app.

Depends on:

  • Milestone 1 API decisions for middleware, validation, and error handling.

Exit criteria:

  • Most common configuration mistakes fail with clear errors.
  • The repository has coverage for the main integration paths that users actually run.
  • Template drift is caught automatically before publish.

Milestone 3: Release And Packaging Hardening

Goal: make the generator, template, and framework release process boring and repeatable.

Tasks:

  • Add a release checklist for framework, generator, template, docs, and version bumps.
  • Add or automate package version alignment between framework, template, and example app.
  • Keep scaffold commands, docs, and CLI help text consistent.
  • Add optional scaffold customization flags only if they do not complicate the default path.

Depends on:

  • Milestone 2 confidence that scaffolding and runtime behavior are stable.

Exit criteria:

  • A new published release can be produced without manual guesswork.
  • The CLI and docs point to the same supported scaffold command.
  • Published template output matches the intended framework version.

Milestone 4: 1.0 Readiness Review

Goal: freeze the public API and confirm the project is ready to call 1.0.0.

Tasks:

  • Review the public export surface and remove or document anything experimental.
  • Document the supported routing, controller, session, and view conventions as stable.
  • Keep middleware examples in the scaffolded app before 1.0 (decision: yes).
  • Verify the example app matches the generated template behavior.

Depends on:

  • Completion of Milestones 1 through 3.

Exit criteria:

  • The documented public API matches the shipped code.
  • New apps scaffold cleanly and run without manual fixes.
  • The example app and template are functionally aligned.

Post 1.0

These are good follow-up candidates after the first stable release:

  • File-based or convention-based routing experiments.
  • Authentication and authorization primitives.
  • Database integration or data-access helpers.
  • Plugin or extension architecture.

Roadmap Issue Tracking

Roadmap work is tracked in GitHub issues using a consistent convention:

  • enhancement plus roadmap labels
  • DI Roadmap or DX Roadmap style titles
  • phase milestones when a group of issues belongs to a coordinated slice

This keeps the public roadmap readable without forcing readers to inspect issue bodies for structure.

1.0 Release Bar

Colonel is ready for 1.0.0 when all of the following are true:

  • The documented public API is stable and covered by tests.
  • New projects scaffold cleanly and start without manual fixes.
  • The example app matches the template behavior.
  • The docs accurately describe the shipped feature set.