# Aether Project Roadmap

**Project**: A beautiful, fast, native cross-platform Qt 6 + QML client for the self-hosted Stoat backend.  
**License**: AGPL-3.0  
**Core Principles**: Modular architecture, clean code, performance-first, testability, easy to self-host, no telemetry.

**Theme Direction**  
Main theme: Black (primary) / Gold (secondary) / Purple (accents) — inspired by apollons.net.  
The theme will become fully user-customizable in Phase 7.

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### Phase 1: UI Foundation & Basic Interactivity (Current)
1. Finalize basic layout stability (guild list, channel list, chat area, member list, voice bar)
2. Add realistic placeholder data (guilds, channels, fake messages, fake users)
3. Make UI interactive (channel switching, guild switching, basic message input)
4. Keyboard navigation basics
5. Create `UI_Style_Guide.md`

### Phase 2: Core Data Layer & Fake Backend
6. Create clean in-memory data models (`MessageModel`, `ChannelModel`, `GuildModel`, `UserModel`)
7. Implement proper channel switching that updates chat content
8. Fake message sending (adds to list instantly)
9. Basic app state management (current guild, current channel, etc.)

### Phase 3: Authentication & Stoat API Foundation
10. Create `StoatClient` C++ class (network layer, JSON handling)
11. Login / token storage / logout flow
12. Fetch real guilds, channels, and members from Stoat
13. Establish real-time WebSocket connection (Stoat events)

### Phase 4: Full Text Chat
14. Real message loading and sending via Stoat
15. Read/unread indicators, typing indicators
16. Message reactions and replies (basic)
17. Search within a channel

### Phase 5: Voice & Video
18. Voice channel joining / leaving UI
19. VoiceBar improvements + mute/deafen logic
20. Basic voice connection using Qt Multimedia
21. Video feed placeholder and toggle

### Phase 6: Advanced Features
22. Direct Messages (DMs)
23. Notifications (in-app + system tray)
24. User settings and profile
25. Threads
26. Roles and permissions (basic)

### Phase 7: Polish, Theming & Cross-Platform
27. Full theming system (Black/Gold/Purple base + user-customizable themes)
28. Dark/Light mode + system preference support
29. Performance optimizations (virtualization, lazy loading)
30. Error handling and offline mode
31. Unit + UI tests
32. Internationalization stub
33. Build presets for Windows + macOS
34. Linux packaging (AppImage + Flatpak)
35. Android/iOS preparation

### Phase 8: Release & Distribution
36. Final code review and security audit
37. Complete documentation (README, build instructions, self-hosting guide)
38. First public release (v0.1.0)
39. CI/CD pipeline setup

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**Current Position**: We are at the beginning of **Phase 1**.

This roadmap is the single source of truth. All future work (with Claude or otherwise) must follow this order unless explicitly revised.

Last updated: 2026-03-30