Implementation Roadmap

TDD slices, dependencies, release gates and parallelization

Wave 0 — preserve current work

0.1 Approval and commit boundary

Finish current visual acceptance and commit the existing Recall/status/dedupe work separately before starting this roadmap. Do not mix unapproved deployment changes with new architecture.

Wave 1 — immediate UX and provenance

1.1 Stable carousel

UWPTDD

Key items by Recall ID; poll only when count/revision changes; preserve selection; add Follow latest.

Tests: widget structural tests + pure reconciliation helper tests + installed click-through.

1.2 Raw VLM envelope

BridgeMigration

Persist exact provider envelope before normalization; add on-demand detail command and Image/Extracted/Raw tabs.

1.3 Drawer compression

UWP

Shared filter/header/plus pattern, type-specific editable prompts, recap prompt conversion, icon swap. Replace Research/Memory refresh controls with plus actions, add the same to Notes, and update cards live from revision-aware invalidation.

Wave 2 — durable trace inspector

2.1 Trace store

Add SQLite metadata/events/blob storage; redact before write; link history turn IDs to run IDs. Persist live because Hermes events/status expire.

2.2 Hermes event fidelity

First enhance Hermes Runs/tool-dispatch to emit or reference redacted call IDs, arguments and raw results; consume existing reasoning.available. Add contract fixtures for absent reasoning.

2.3 Live/historical UI

Four-line fading tail, expand/collapse, per-tool raw pager and historical bubble traces.

2.4 Local explanations

Dynamic LM Studio model discovery; background cached summaries/annotated breakdowns; never replace raw.

Wave 3 — source ledger and ingestion

3.1 Tool artifact capture

Use the Hermes-side capture envelope to persist every eligible GTC/HTTP/local extraction output with run/tool provenance and versioning.

3.2 Protocol + Sources viewer

Declare corpus commands in the shared JSON schema; add raw/extracted/version/chunk views, citing runs, delete/export/refresh and storage dashboard.

3.3 New-game wizard

PowerShell inventory, approved roots, source proposals, ingestion manifest and resumable jobs.

3.4 PDF/wiki adapters

Structure-aware PDF pages and bounded GTC crawl jobs with provenance. Prioritize the verified Torment manuals/strategy guide/novellas; leave decorative media metadata-only by default.

Wave 4 — hybrid retrieval

4.1 Chunk/index migration

Heading/page-aware chunks and FTS retrieval contract.

4.2 Nomic embeddings

LM Studio adapter, hash/model cache, fallback and job status.

4.3 Fusion and spoiler filter

RRF, trust/version filtering, evidence budgets and citations.

4.4 Evaluation gate

Torment benchmark; enable hybrid only when it improves source recall without spoiler leakage.

Parallel work lanes

LaneCan proceed independently after shared schema briefHard dependency
A · UWP UXCarousel, drawers, icons, trace componentsDetail/trace API shapes
B · Trace backendTrace DB, event capture, blobs, redactionHermes event fixtures
C · Corpus backendSource artifacts, ingestion jobs, extractionCanonical source/version schema
D · RetrievalChunking, embeddings, evaluationSource versions + chunks

Concrete file map

Verification gate for every slice

python -m pytest tests/<focused> -q
python -m pytest tests -q
python -m py_compile bridge/game_assist_bridge/*.py
powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File ./scripts/build-widget.ps1 -Configuration Release -Platform x64
git diff --check
# install signed package with application-data preservation
# physically verify in Xbox Game Bar

Release risks

Definition of done