Roadmap

Current Baseline

Maxine already includes:

  • local, shared-file, and Redis-backed registry state modes
  • redirect and proxy discovery modes
  • weighted distribution with RR, CH, and RH
  • Redis lease leadership with fencing tokens
  • opt-in active upstream health checks
  • RBAC, audit, alerts, traces, and Prometheus-formatted metrics
  • editable dashboard source
  • GitHub Actions-based CI/CD, GHCR packaging, and Helm publication
  • in-repo SDKs for Node.js, Java, Python, and Go

Highest-Priority Remaining Work

1. Distributed Control Plane

  • move beyond Redis lease coordination toward stronger clustered semantics
  • improve split-brain handling and failover guarantees
  • add deeper leadership-aware mutation coverage
  • document operational behavior for replica failure and recovery

2. Proxy and Health Model

  • deepen proxy timeouts, retries, and policy controls
  • improve request/response edge-case handling in proxy mode
  • add richer upstream readiness semantics beyond the current probe model
  • improve recovery behavior after active eviction

3. Security and Identity

  • add stronger secret lifecycle guidance and automation
  • explore external identity integration
  • strengthen authorization boundaries and audit retention strategy
  • document transport hardening expectations for production use

4. Observability and Operations

  • add durable monitoring guidance and dashboards
  • integrate with a tracing backend
  • improve alert routing patterns and operational runbooks
  • expand SLO-oriented metrics and signals

5. UI and Frontend Tooling

  • add frontend tests
  • improve accessibility and role-aware workflows
  • validate responsive behavior and operational UX
  • decide on a longer-term frontend packaging strategy

6. SDKs and Release Engineering

  • formalize semantic versioning and release notes
  • align server, SDK, chart, and container versioning
  • improve retry/backoff ergonomics in clients
  • complete first polished public release flow across all artifacts

Delivery Direction

Near Term

  • stabilize the new cluster, proxy, health, and security surfaces
  • keep docs, Helm, SDKs, and API specs aligned with runtime behavior
  • improve operational guidance for Redis-backed deployments

Mid Term

  • harden production deployment patterns
  • improve release engineering and version discipline
  • mature the UI and observability story

Long Term

  • decide whether Maxine remains Redis-coordinated or evolves into a stronger clustered control plane
  • validate the architecture against real production-style failure modes