figcraft/ROADMAP.md

FigCraft Roadmap

FigCraft is a clean-room, open-source, pure-Rust reimplementation of the Figma design workflow. It runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and the web (WASM), and agents can drive it completely through the CLI, a JSON control channel and MCP.

This file tracks how far we are and what's left. Time estimates are wall-clock hours of continuous Claude Opus 5.5 agent work (including builds and the CI gate), for one agent and for 4–6 parallel agents on disjoint crates. They are counted from the remaining work in the parity table below and updated as work lands.

Last updated: 2026-10-10 (day 2: vector editing, auto layout, text, components and assets, prototyping, interop, styles and variables, inspect code, panels polish).

Where we are

Dimension	Status
Infrastructure (crates, command registry, undo, renderer, formats, control channel, tests)	~70%
Look & feel vs the incumbent's 2026 UI (measured side by side)	~65%
Menu/command breadth (docs/parity.md)	97% of the catalogued menu tree has a command
Feature depth (weighted rubric below)	~58%
Parity including interaction fidelity and hardening	~35–40%
Time to feature parity	~130–210 h one agent · ~35–60 h with 4–6 agents
Time to full parity (feature parity + fidelity pass + hardening)	~210–330 h one agent · ~60–95 h with 4–6 agents

Honest assessment (2026-10-09)

In one line: the architecture is complete end to end (document model → commands → renderer → UI, CLI/MCP and control channel), and the everyday core (frames, shapes, text, auto layout, components with overrides, variants, styles, variables, effects, booleans, prototyping basics, SVG/PNG/JPG export) works. What's missing is depth: vector editing, rich text editing, the long tail of auto-layout and component behaviours, real-file interop and a fidelity pass against the incumbent.

How much to trust the numbers: scores are self-graded by the agents that built the features from public documentation and black-box observation. Treat them as upper bounds. Look & feel is the only dimension measured side by side.

Where we're lacking (priority order)

1. Vector edit mode: landed: edit-mode toolbar (move, pen, bend, paint bucket, lasso, cut), pen that extends, branches and closes paths (vector networks), paint bucket fill/unfill of any closed area (faces with holes), point/segment selection, handle mirroring (none/angle/angle and length) with a Point panel (position, corner radius, mirroring), smooth/sharp points, join and merge, delete vs delete-and-heal, nudging, one undo step per gesture, eraser (⇧E). Left: variable width strokes, shape builder, transform box for several points, point snapping. 12–18 h.
2. Text editing depth: landed: OpenType features panel, small caps, lists, title case, truncation/max lines, font picker with previews and recents, word/line selection, IME commit, inline IME composition (underlined at the caret, reflowing, candidate window at the caret; the document only gets the committed text), variable fonts (axes and named instances read from the font, named instances as styles, Type settings ▸ Variable sliders, per-range axis values applied to shaping, outlines and PDF), range-aware Typography panel with "Mixed". Range fills in the Fill section. Left: axis hover preview, right-to-left/bidi text, visual QA. 6–10 h.
3. Auto layout depth: landed: on-canvas padding/gap handles (also wrapped-row and grid column/row gaps, grid tracks outlined), min/max width/height (UI, Hug/Fill/Fixed, hugging text wraps at its max), ignore auto layout (absolute position) with constraints, text baseline alignment, grid tracks (fixed/hug/fr), grid cells and spans, wrap row gap UI, wrap-aware drag-reorder (by row) and dragging into a grid cell. Left: nested hug/fill edge cases. 4–7 h.
4. Components depth: landed: component properties (edit/delete/bind) with the properties panel, add variant, instance swap UI, per-layer overrides with reset, restore main, instance structure protection; Assets panel with live thumbnails, search and drag-to-canvas (drops into the frame or auto layout slot under the pointer); exposed nested instances (their properties show on the main's instances); component descriptions (edited on the main, shown on instances). Left: nested override edge cases, slots, local libraries (publish/use across files). 10–14 h.
5. Prototyping depth: landed: on-canvas connections with drag-to-connect, interaction editor, flows, smart animate, overlays, scroll/fixed/sticky, change-to and set-variable in the presenter. Custom bezier and custom spring easings with editor fields; device frames (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop bodies drawn in code) around the presented frame; overlays animate out with their opening transition reversed; several selected layers edit their interactions together (or replace mixed ones). Left: scrolling inside device frames. 3–5 h.
6. Interop: landed: image crop handles; REST API file JSON import (file.open / file.import / CLI: pages, layer tree, geometry, paints, strokes, effects, text runs, vectors from geometry paths, auto layout, constraints, grids, components, sets, instances with overrides, component properties, styles; image fills from an images folder or placeholders; warnings for the rest). Paste from other apps: images, SVG and text (the newest clipboard content wins over our own copy). Left: .fig import (best effort), PDF export (in progress), REST import of prototype interactions and variables. 20–32 h.
7. Look & feel and interaction-fidelity pass: tool by tool, panel by panel against the incumbent (cursors, modifier keys, hover states, menus, popovers). 40–60 h.
8. Collaboration (local): comments landed (pins, threads, resolve, panel). Version history landed (named versions saved in the .figcraft file; restore, rename, duplicate, delete; panel); previews on the canvas and autosave checkpoints are missing. Multiplayer and plugins are not started. 25–55 h.
9. Hardening and performance: landed: cargo xtask bench (synthetic 1k/10k/50k-layer pages: engine, render and headless UI-frame timings). The canvas keeps its last image and re-renders only what a pan uncovers or an edit touches: moving one layer at 10k layers re-renders in ~0.2 ms instead of ~8 ms (0.8 vs 24 ms at 50k zoomed out), a 40 px pan in ~0.7 ms instead of ~7.5 ms. The layers panel lays out only the rows in view (every screen expanded at 50k: 39 → 0.6 ms a frame); text layouts are shared instead of re-formatted per lookup; overflowing text is culled by its glyphs. At 10k: full 1440×900 renders 7–15 ms, single-layer edits ~10 µs, hit tests ~26 µs. Left: zoomed-out renders at 50k (~40 ms: tiles or levels of detail), save/load at 50k (~0.7 s each), a real-world file corpus, Windows/Linux/browser QA, accessibility. 40–60 h.

Where we're going

• Next: hardening and performance (9) with the fidelity pass (7); the rest of vector editing (eraser, shape builder, variable width) and components (nested overrides, libraries).
• Then: interop depth (6: .fig best effort, paste from other apps), version history and collaboration (8).
• Alpha: release builds on every push to release (packaging in progress), demo files, docs.

Shipped so far

• Architecture: 13 crates with enforced layering (cargo xtask layers): geom, color, doc, layout, text, pathops, render, format, svg, engine, ui-egui (+ mcp, pdf in progress). Every action is a command (~330); undo is unlimited via structural sharing (Arc node snapshots); gestures are one undo step; command.batch runs several commands as one step.
• Document model: pages, frames, groups, sections, rectangles, ellipses (arcs/rings), polygons, stars, lines/arrows, vector networks, text with styled runs, boolean groups, components, component sets (variants), instances with per-layer overrides, slices; fills (solid, linear/radial/angular/ diamond gradients, images with fill/fit/crop/tile + adjustments), multiple strokes with inside/center/outside alignment, per-side weights, dashes, caps/arrowheads, joins; effects (drop and inner shadow with spread, layer blur, background blur, noise, texture); corner radii with smoothing; constraints; auto layout (horizontal, vertical, wrap, grid; hug/fill/fixed; min/max; absolute children); layout grids; export settings; prototype interactions, flows and transitions; paint/text/effect/grid styles; variables with collections, modes and aliases.
• Renderer: CPU (tiny-skia) scene renderer used for canvas, export and the web: isolated layers for opacity/blend/effects, clip content, masks, booleans (linesweeper), text (harfrust shaping, skrifa outlines, font fallback), aligned strokes with caching.
• Engine: pointer tools (move/marquee/deep select/resize/rotate/Alt-duplicate with smart-guide snapping, frame/section/slice/shapes/line/arrow with Shift/Alt, text, pen, pencil, hand, eyedropper), text editing (caret, selection, words, lines), auto layout reorder by dragging, drop into frames, align/distribute/tidy, z-order, flip/rotate, scale tool, booleans, flatten, outline stroke, components (create, instances, sync with overrides, reset, detach, push changes, variants, properties), styles and variables, prototype commands, find/replace, batch rename, copy/paste (internal + SVG/text), file new/open/save/import/export (native .figcraft, SVG in/out, PNG/JPG/WebP), version snapshots.
• UI (egui, swappable): the incumbent's 2026 layout: tab strip, icon rail, file header, pages and layers tree (rename, visibility/lock, drag to reorder/reparent), Assets panel, floating bottom toolbar with flyouts and mode switcher, Design / Prototype / Inspect (CSS) panels, colour picker (HSB square, hue/alpha, hex, gradient stops, image fills), main menu generated from the catalog, context menu, Actions palette (⌘K), keyboard shortcuts from the catalog, presentation player with transitions, light and dark themes, home screen, About/Preferences/shortcuts/variables dialogs.
• Automation: desktop control channel (--control <port>: execute commands, inspect document/UI, synthetic pointer/keys/typing, menu invocation, screenshots, renders).
• Tests: ~260 automated tests including junk-parameter sweeps over every command (and every vector-edit command while editing), importer fuzzing and render regressions.

Parity estimate (weighted rubric)

Scores by behaviour, 0–100%. Hours are what remains (one agent).

Area	Weight	Score	Remaining work	Hours
Canvas & navigation	6	65%	pixel preview, frame guides, perf at scale	6–10
Selection & transform	8	64%	scale tool polish, measure hover polish	8–12
Layers panel	5	70%	drag polish (auto-scroll while dragging, drop into collapsed groups), keyboard row navigation	4–6
Shapes & vector	8	60%	variable width, shape builder, multi-point transform box, point snapping, live boolean editing, arc handles on canvas	12–18
Paint	7	65%	colour profiles (Display P3), paint style picker polish, image adjustment presets	6–10
Strokes	3	70%	stroke styles, variable width, arrowhead previews in the menus	3–5
Effects	4	70%	glass/texture fidelity, shadow spread on non-rects exactness	4–7
Frames, groups, sections, masks	5	75%	hiding section contents UI, section-level prototype/dev affordances	2–4
Auto layout & constraints	9	65%	nested hug/fill edge cases, drag-reorder across nested auto layout frames	4–7
Text	8	65%	visual caret movement in right-to-left runs, right-to-left layer names in the panels, text style picker depth, axis hover preview	6–9
Components & variants	9	60%	libraries, slots, nested override edge cases	10–15
Styles & variables	5	72%	binding effects, line height and letter spacing, variable groups in the editor sidebar	3–5
Prototyping	6	70%	scrolling inside device frames, prototype preview pane in the editor	3–5
Import/export	6	50%	PDF (in progress), .fig import, export panel polish, REST import of prototypes/variables	18–32
Dev mode / inspect	2	55%	asset export list in Inspect, redlines in the Inspect tab, code for whole frames as components	4–6
Comments, versions, misc	3	35%	version preview on the canvas, autosave checkpoints, comment polish, plugins (WASM)	12–20

Weighted feature depth ≈ 58% (self-graded; the table's arithmetic gives ~59%).

Milestones

Milestone	Status
M0 Foundation: workspace, model, renderer, engine, UI shell, app, control channel	done (2026-10-09)
M0.9 CLI + MCP, web build, release packaging, PDF export	in progress
M1 Core editing completeness (tools, panels, menus, clipboard, files)	~60%
M2 Layout depth	~60%
M3 Components & styles depth	~40%
M4 Vector & text depth	~45%
M5 Prototype & present	~30%
M6 Interop & dev mode	~35%
M7 Release (signed builds for all platforms, README screenshots)	started