urus/ROADMAP.md

# urus — Roadmap

> Companion to `urus-spec.md` (artefact store, URUS project). v1 shipped
> 2026-05-26, built against pre-v0.4 smarm — before cancellation, supervisors,
> links, gen_server, registry, select, and the slot-slab runtime existed.
> smarm is now at v0.8. This roadmap covers catching up, then extending.

## State assessment (2026-06-11)

Verified against smarm master (`393cdd0`: v0.8 slot slab + park-epoch +
select, plus RFC 008 phase 1 fd arms / timed fd waits):

- **Builds clean, 24/24 tests pass.** The scheduler surface urus consumes
  (`spawn`, `wait_readable`, `wait_writable`, `sleep`, `init`, `Config`,
  `run`, `JoinHandle`) survived the v0.5–v0.8 runtime rework unchanged.
- **Timeouts are decorative.** `Config::{request_timeout, keep_alive_timeout}`
  are threaded into `ConnLimits` and never read. `read_some` parks in
  `wait_readable` with no deadline → an idle keep-alive connection pins its
  actor (and its 64 KiB+ of buffers) forever. Slowloris-shaped.
- **No supervision.** Spec §2.1 calls for a supervised listener pool;
  v1 predates `Strategy`/`ChildSpec` and uses bare `spawn` + `join`.
  A panicking listener silently shrinks the accept pool.
- **No graceful shutdown.** Spec deferred it; smarm now has the pieces:
  `request_stop` + sentinel unwind, and the 06-10 io fix (*deregister a
  stopped actor's fd wait on the unwind path*) makes stopping an actor
  parked in `wait_readable` safe. The `OwnedFd`-drops-on-unwind discipline
  in `conn_actor.rs` already composes with this.
- **No streaming response path.** `RespBody` is `Empty | Bytes`. Blocks SSE
  (a spec v1 goal that slipped) and chunked responses.
- **Full-duplex constraint (matters for WebSocket).** smarm's epoll model is
  one waiter per RawFd (`AlreadyExists`, now surfaced as `Err` via the
  `try_select` twins) and one direction per parked actor. RFC 008 phase 1
  (landed `393cdd0`) gives first-of(fd, channel) via fd arms in select —
  the duplex options in v0.4-3 are both open now. Decide in v0.4 design,
  before the frame codec.

---

## v0.2 — OTP refresh ✅ (landed 2026-06, chunks 1-4 / commits 5fe6969..HEAD)

Adopt the primitives urus predates. No protocol surface changes; `Plug`/`Conn`
untouched. Chunks are independently landable, in order:

### 1. Supervised listener pool ✅
Landed: `serve_with` runs a `Strategy::OneForOne` supervisor on the root
actor, one `ChildSpec` per dup'd listener fd, `Restart::Permanent`. A
listener panic (or a transient `wait_readable` failure, which now exits
and restarts instead of being fatal) restarts that listener; the pool
never silently shrinks. Connection actors stay unsupervised bare spawns
(per spec: a connection is cheap and its failure is local — a 500 path,
not a restart path); `spawn` parents them under the listener, which has no
supervisor channel, so their deaths are invisible to the pool supervisor
by construction.

Open question resolved as leaned: the ChildSpec factory owns the fd via
`Arc<OwnedFd>` (`OwnedFd` gained `Sync` for this) and every (re)start
reuses it. No re-dup, no window where a pool slot has no fd. Covered by
`tests/integration.rs::panicking_listener_restarts` (pool of 1, panic
injected before `accept` so the pending connection must survive into the
restarted listener).

### 2. Graceful shutdown ✅
Landed (c658ac0): `serve_with_shutdown(config, pipeline, signal)` +
`shutdown_handle()`. Drain-then-stop as decided below; design details in
the commit body. `serve_with` keeps v1 run-forever semantics by dropping
its own Handle.
`serve_with` gains a shutdown signal (an `urus::Handle` with `.shutdown()`,
backed by a channel + `request_stop` fan-out):
1. Stop listeners (no new accepts; listener fds close).
2. **Decided: drain-then-stop with a deadline** — in-flight requests get
   to finish; `request_stop` after the deadline (unwind closes fds cleanly
   via `OwnedFd::drop`). Drain also keeps the door open for an
   apache-reload-style restart later.
3. Supervisor winds down; `rt.run` returns; `serve_with` returns.

Requires tracking live connection pids. Cheapest honest version: a
`gen_server` connection registry — listener casts `{Started, pid}`, conn
actor monitors-free self-deregisters via a drop guard cast. Pid set only
(no activity stamps — chunk 3 went per-conn timed waits, no reaper); still
the future ws/channels introspection point, so build it once here.

### 3. Enforce the timeouts we advertise ✅
Landed (a60687b): timed waits as decided below; the leaning held — a
per-request `Instant` deadline keeps `request_timeout` an honest
whole-request wall clock (mid-head expiry: best-effort non-parking 408;
mid-body: close). Details in the commit body.
**Decided: smarm-native timed waits** (the fork's option (a), a reaper in
urus, died when RFC 008 landed at `393cdd0` — `wait_readable_timeout` /
`wait_writable_timeout` exist upstream now, so there is nothing for the
reaper to be the stopgap for):

`read_some` parks in `wait_readable_timeout` instead of `wait_readable`;
`Ok(false)` means the deadline passed and the conn actor closes. Per-conn
semantics, no activity stamping, no sweep ticker. Semantics note: a timed
read wait enforces *idle-between-reads* — `keep_alive_timeout` between
requests, and slowloris dies because each stalled read has a deadline.
`request_timeout` as a whole-request wall clock is NOT what this gives;
decide in implementation whether to track a per-request deadline across
reads (cheap: one `Instant` in the conn loop, pass the min of both
budgets to each wait) or redefine `request_timeout` as per-read. Leaning
the `Instant`: it keeps the advertised config honest.

urus is the first real consumer of the timed wrappers — note the RFC 008
reviewer flag (`wait_fd` wraps in `NoPreempt`, select arms don't); the
crud example under load doubles as that confirmation.

### 4. Hygiene ✅
Landed: registry names + whereis test (in-runtime probe via a handler —
tests are foreign threads), README rewrite, smarm-trace compile verified.
- Registry names: `urus.server`, `urus.listener.{n}` via `smarm::register`
  (debuggability; `whereis` in tests).
- README: rewrite Roadmap section to point here; document `Handle`.
- `smarm-trace` feature passthrough already exists — verify it still
  compiles under `--features smarm-trace`.

**Exit criteria:** kill -TERM equivalent drains cleanly in the crud example;
an idle keep-alive conn is reaped at `keep_alive_timeout`; a deliberately
panicking listener restarts under load without dropped accepts (test each).

---

## v0.3 — Streaming bodies + SSE ✅ (landed 2026-06, chunks 1-3)

The slipped v1 goal, and the WebSocket prerequisite (an upgraded connection
is "a response that never ends").

1. `RespBody::Stream(StreamBody)` ✅ — **decided: pull** (user call at the
   v0.3 design fork): the handler hands back a `smarm::Receiver<Vec<u8>>`
   and the producer is an actor the handler spawned; the conn actor pumps
   (`pump_stream`) and keeps sole ownership of the socket and write
   deadlines. The recv() park between chunks is stoppable by the draining
   registry, so infinite streams die at the drain deadline with no
   polling. HTTP/1.1: chunked TE, keep-alive after the terminator;
   HTTP/1.0: raw bytes, forced close, EOF-delimited. End of stream =
   every Sender dropped = 0-chunk. Timeout split (handoff Q3, as
   proposed): `request_timeout` covers the READ phase only; new
   `Config.write_timeout` (default 30s) bounds every response write —
   fresh budget per streamed chunk, and the fixed-body + error-response
   writes went deadline-bounded too (write-side slowloris closed).
2. Chunked **request** bodies ✅ — `read_chunked_body` decodes
   incrementally on the request deadline; extensions ignored, trailers
   consumed + discarded, decoded size capped at max_body_bytes (413),
   size-line/trailer spam capped (400). CL + TE: chunked, or chunked on
   HTTP/1.0, rejected 400 at parse (smuggling ambiguity). Keep-alive
   drain accounts RAW framing length, so pipelined requests behind a
   chunked body land exactly.
3. SSE sugar ✅ — `Conn::sse()` / `sse_with_heartbeat` → `EventSender`
   (`send(event, data)` / `data` / `comment`, Clone, `Err(SseClosed)`
   once the stream is gone). Heartbeat lives in the pump as leaned: with
   `StreamBody.heartbeat` set, the chunk wait is `recv_timeout(interval)`
   and expiry writes a `: keep-alive` comment chunk. Liveness from the
   ping (dead client = heartbeat write stalls past write_timeout), not
   from any request clock.

**Exit criteria (verified):** chunked round-trips both directions with
keep-alive and pipelining intact; an infinite SSE stream heartbeats while
silent, is killed by write_timeout when the client stops reading, and is
force-stopped at the drain deadline on shutdown; full suite green.

---

## v0.4 — WebSocket upgrade path ✅ (landed 2026-06, chunks 1-3)

1. **Handshake** ✅ (49538cc) — `Conn::upgrade()` (handler arg comes
   with chunk 3): §4.2.1 validation, 101 + accept key, marker field on
   `Conn`, actor leaves the HTTP loop (fd drops until chunk 3 takes
   over). Rejections stay plain HTTP (400 / 426 + version header) with
   keep-alive intact. **Dep decision changed at the design pass**: SHA-1
   is `sha1_smol` (zero transitive deps) — dep #3 SPENT, no hand-rolled
   crypto (user call). The v0.6 JSON question is therefore a dep #4
   question now. Base64 stays in-tree, encode-only.
2. **Frame codec** ✅ (2869153) — pure `ws::frame`: incremental
   `decode` (mask-required server mode), minimal-length + RSV + control
   rules enforced, header-derived cap check before payload buffering,
   close-code wire validation, `Assembler` for fragmentation with
   whole-message UTF-8 check, `FrameError`→close-code map
   (1002/1009/1007). §5.7 examples pinned verbatim.
3. **Duplex wiring** ✅ — topology decision: **(b) one actor, RFC 008
   fd arms** (urus exists to put smarm through its paces; first fd-arm
   consumer is the point). As landed:
   - `ws::duplex::run_duplex` replaces the HTTP loop after the 101:
     `try_select(&[&outbound_rx, &FdArm::readable(fd)])` per iteration —
     outbound at index 0 (select is priority-ordered: owed writes drain
     before reading more). Accepted gap documented: mid-write of a large
     outbound frame the actor isn't reading.
   - Handler API (the deferred questions, as answered): in-actor
     callbacks — `WsHandler { on_message, on_close }` runs inside the
     select loop; concurrency = spawn your own actor with a `WsSender`
     clone (the SSE-producer pattern). `Conn::upgrade(self, handler)`
     flat signature (builder deferred until per-upgrade options exist,
     e.g. subprotocols). `WsSender`: Clone, `send/text/binary/ping/
     close → Err(WsClosed)`, unbounded channel like SSE (slow client
     bounded by write_timeout). Control frames invisible v1: auto-pong
     inline (§5.5.2), peer close auto-echoed (§5.5.1, server closes TCP
     first per §7.1.1) surfacing only as `on_close(Some(code), reason)`;
     wordless endings (EOF, write failure, handshake timeout) =
     `on_close(None, "")`. `on_ping`/`on_pong` can land later as default
     trait methods, non-breaking.
   - Server-initiated close (WsSender::close or FrameError→1002/1009/
     1007, handler panic→1011): close frame out, then a bounded drain
     (one write_timeout budget) for the peer's echo, discarding data
     (§1.4). Handler panics re-raise smarm's stop sentinel before being
     treated as panics — the pipeline's catch_unwind dance, replicated.
   - Caps: `Config.max_frame_payload` (1 MiB) / `max_message_bytes`
     (4 MiB) — Config fields per the max_body_bytes precedent; header
     cap checked before payload buffers.
   - Buf handover: bytes pipelined past the upgrade head carry into the
     duplex loop (tested).
   - Registry: conn stays **Busy** for the ws lifetime (an open ws is
     in-flight work); graceful shutdown force-stops it out of the select
     park at the drain deadline (tested — the in-runtime request_stop
     wake covers select parks, not just channel recv).
   - Validated against a real client (python websocket-client): echo,
     ping/pong payload, close handshake. `examples/ws_echo.rs` shows
     both handler shapes (/echo in-actor, /clock producer-spawning).
4. **Handler API** ✅ — folded into chunk 3 above (was: settle in design
   pass; settled: gen_server-shaped trait + WsSender handle).

## v0.5 — PubSub ✅ (landed 2026-06, chunks 1-2)

`urus::pubsub`, phoenix_pubsub-shaped, local node only (no distribution —
smarm has none). All six design questions ratified by the user pre-code
("push" on the stated leans); as-landed:

- **Generic `PubSub<M>`** per instance (Q1); heterogeneous buses are an
  app-side enum. `Arc<M>` payloads: one allocation per broadcast.
- **`subscribe(topic) -> Receiver<Arc<M>>`** (Q2), fresh channel per
  subscription; `subscribe_as(pid, ..)` pins lifetime to an explicit pid
  for relay shapes. Sender-passing fan-in (`subscribe_with`) deliberately
  deferred — compatible addition.
- **Unbounded mailboxes** (Q3): broadcast never blocks the table. Cleanup
  is monitor `Down` (eager, on subscriber death) + prune-on-send-failure
  (lazy, dropped receivers). Bench before sharding.
- **User-owned handle** (Q4). The ratified register-by-name helper turned
  out NOT implementable: smarm's registry maps name → Pid and a Pid can't
  be turned back into a `ServerRef`. Deferred pending smarm support (or a
  type-erased global, rejected). `pid()` exposed.
- **Unique per `(pid, topic)`** (Q5): subscribe idempotent (replaces the
  sender; the stale receiver closes). One monitor per live pid.
  `handle_down` is a full table scan as ratified; pid→topics reverse
  index is the documented optimization if deaths measure hot.
- Table: gen_server `HashMap<Topic, HashMap<Pid, Sender<Arc<M>>>>` —
  single server, not sharded (bench first). `subscriber_count(topic)`
  added (tests need to observe async cleanup; legitimate API).

**Discoveries this cycle:**
- `PubSub::new()` is in-runtime only (spawns the table actor) but
  pipelines are built pre-runtime → the composition pattern is a
  NON-static `Arc<OnceLock<PubSub<M>>>` in the route closure. Non-static
  is load-bearing: the drained pipeline drops the cell in-runtime, the
  table's inbox closes, the table exits, AllDone is reachable. A `static`
  (crud's store shape) hangs `serve_with_shutdown`. Corollary: relays
  hold `Receiver` only, never a `PubSub` clone (mutual-keepalive cycle).
  Proven by `shutdown_with_open_chat_terminates`.
- **`WsHandler::on_open(&mut self, sender)`** added (defaulted,
  non-breaking): without it a listen-only ws client can never be
  subscribed (`on_message` never fires). Same panic contract as
  `on_message` (1011, no `on_close`). The 101 reaches the client before
  `on_open` runs — subscription liveness needs an app-level ack
  (documented; the integration tests use a `sync`/`synced` ack).
- hammer.sh default subset now includes `ws_`.

Chunk 2's ws_chat: rooms as topics, `on_open` subscribes (conn-actor
pid) + spawns the relay, `broadcast_from(self_pid(), ..)` for no-echo.

## v0.6 — Channels — DONE (2026-06-12)

Join/leave/event protocol over WebSocket transport, PubSub underneath.
Design decisions ratified pre-code (2026-06-12):

**Feature flags.** Two additive features:
- `"channels"` — the `Channel` trait, `TopicRouter` trait, `PrefixRouter`,
  `ChannelSocket`, session machinery. Zero new deps; pubsub is already
  always-on (it only exists because channels needs it).
- `"phoenix"` — implies `"channels"` + `serde`/`serde_json` + the V2 frame
  codec. Opt-in phoenix.js interop; users who want protobuf or any other
  wire format take `"channels"` only and supply their own codec.

**Payload generics.** The `Channel` trait is generic over payload:
`P: Encode + Decode` where `Encode`/`Decode` are urus codec traits (one
method each). The `"phoenix"` feature provides a `JsonCodec` blanket impl
via serde. No JSON anywhere in the `"channels"` surface.

**`Channel` trait shape.**
```
trait Channel<P>: Send + 'static {
    fn join(topic: &str, payload: P, socket: &ChannelSocket<P>) -> Result<P, P>;
    fn handle_in(&mut self, event: &str, payload: P, socket: &ChannelSocket<P>);
    fn terminate(&mut self) {}
}
```
`handle_out` deferred — can land as a defaulted method, non-breaking.

**`ChannelSocket`.** Newtype over `WsSender` + a `PubSub` handle.
Exposes `reply(ref, status, payload)`, `push(event, payload)`,
`broadcast(topic, payload)`. The `ref` from the incoming frame is threaded
in by the channel actor loop, invisible to the impl. Coupling to `PubSub`
is intentional: channels owns pubsub, and broadcast is the core use case.

**Topic router.** `TopicRouter` trait: `fn route(&self, topic: &str) ->
Option<Box<dyn ChannelFactory<P>>>`. Factory receives the full raw topic
string so wildcard-segment extraction is always possible. urus ships
`PrefixRouter` as the default impl: scan to `'*'`, discard the rest,
single `HashMap` lookup on the prefix. No regex dep, no glob machinery —
users who need that implement `TopicRouter` themselves.

**Channel actor lifetime + session persistence.**
Default: channel actor linked to the ws connection actor, cold-start on
every reconnect (phoenix-server-compatible behavior). Opt-in persistence
via a `ChannelSession` trait:
```
trait ChannelSession: Send + 'static {
    type Key: Eq + Hash + Send + 'static;
    fn session_key(topic: &str, join_payload: &P) -> Self::Key;
    fn buffer_cap() -> usize { 128 }
    fn ttl() -> Duration { Duration::from_secs(30) }
}
```
When implemented, the router consults a session registry (gen_server,
same pattern as the connection registry) before spawning: an existing
actor is reattached, and buffered outbound messages (`Vec<Arc<M>>`, no
re-serialisation) are drained to the reconnecting transport. Buffer full
or TTL expired → actor tears down; next join is a cold start. This
diverges from Phoenix server conventions (client-re-syncs) but is
invisible to phoenix.js at the wire level. Zero-copy drain is the smarm
motivation: messages are `Arc<M>` in the buffer and in the PubSub relay
path, one allocation per broadcast regardless of subscriber count or
reconnect cycles.

**Presence:** explicitly out of scope until distribution exists.

**As-landed (2026-06-12), beyond the ratified text — veto by diff:**
- chunk 1: `Channel::join` takes `&mut self` (state from join, and
  session rejoins need the same instance); the in-flight ref is
  threaded invisibly through the socket; `broadcast` gained an `event`
  parameter; `TopicRouter::route` returns `Option<Arc<dyn
  ChannelFactory>>`.
- chunk 2: the serde blanket lives behind the `Json<T>` newtype
  (a blanket on bare `P: Serialize` is coherence poison under additive
  features); encode failure panics into the linked-teardown contract.
- chunk 3: `ChannelFactory` gained a `#[doc(hidden)] deploy()` seam
  (default = the ephemeral linked actor); every attach re-calls
  `join()` (re-entrant by contract); rejected rejoin / explicit leave /
  cap / TTL all end the session; second transport evicts the first;
  `Key: Clone` (registry's pid→key reverse index); registry spawns
  eagerly at registration (in-runtime law, same as `ChannelHub::new`);
  shutdown composes linklessly via the registry-drop chain — proven by
  `shutdown_with_detached_session_terminates`.

---

## Known bugs

- ~~**HTTP/1.0 keep-alive: server honors but never advertises**~~ FIXED
  (2026-06-12, same session it was found). As-landed decisions:
  serialise_response now echoes `connection: keep-alive` on a kept-alive
  1.0 response (1.1 keep-alive stays implicit); error statuses (>=400)
  on 1.0 force close — no keep-alive advertised on a 4xx/5xx where reuse
  is opt-in (conn_actor, alongside the existing 1.0-stream force-close);
  HEAD needs nothing special (header echo only, framing untouched);
  parse-error responses already carried `connection: close`. Validated
  against the original repro: `ab -k -n 5000 -c 50` on GET /users now
  reports 5000/5000 keep-alive requests, 0 failed, ~63k req/s
  (vs ~18.9k no-keep-alive baseline, same box). Watch out benching:
  ab counts a response toward "Non-2xx" silently — a 404'd route still
  shows "Failed requests: 0" with great rps; check the route first.

## Later / icebox

- **HTTP/2** — spec §2.2 already designs the stream-actor demux (zero-copy
  ownership transfer, conn actor owns HPACK + flow control, stream actors
  run the pipeline). Big: HPACK, flow control, priorities. The Stressgrid
  constraint (no stream-actor cost on HTTP/1.1) stays law.
- **SSE ergonomics round 2** — auto-reconnect support (`Last-Event-ID`),
  event-id bookkeeping, backpressure policy on slow consumers.
- **TLS** — still deferred; acceptor design still must not preclude it.
- **Middleware ecosystem** — compression, static files, auth plugs.
- **Bench suite** — `urus-bench-spec.md` exists in the artefact store;
  wire it up once v0.2 lands (supervision changes the hot path not at all,
  but prove it).
- **Operator introspection via typed names** — the v0.2-era
  `urus.server` / `urus.listener.{i}` pid tags were dropped in the
  RFC 014 port (names are messageable endpoints now, self-registered
  with a real `Sender<M>`). If wanted back, do it properly: register the
  serve loop's shutdown/control channel under a typed `urus.server`
  name instead of faking pid tags with unit channels.