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Roadmap and README: M3.7–M3.29 (stage 1 of M3) 

ROADMAP: the M3 row lists what landed (swatches, colour picker and panel,
proxy commands, gradient transforms and annotator, stroke geometry, dotted
lines, arrowheads, appearance targeting, mask reach, clipping by any shape)
and what is pending; a "Paint and appearance" block in Shipped so far; the
colour, stroke and appearance parity rows and the totals re-derived from the
detailed M3 plan, calibrated on its first wave; the reference app is no longer
named. README: the open/export formats from the shared loader and the vendor
name step of cargo xtask ci.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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README.md
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@ -133,7 +133,8 @@ exposes to agents, and exported by VectorCraft's own renderer. The source files
- **Robust.** Exact curve booleans (no "cannot perform operation"), unlimited undo via structural
sharing, and property-tested file round trips.
- **Open.** A documented native format (`.vectorcraft`, JSON), first-class SVG, PDF (and
PDF-compatible `.ai`) import and export, PNG/JPEG/WebP, and Export for Screens.
PDF-compatible `.ai`) import and export, PNG/JPEG/WebP export, Export for Screens, and SVGZ,
templates, GIF, TIFF and BMP on open.
- **Agent-native.** Every menu item, tool gesture, panel and dialog can be driven over a JSON
control channel and an **MCP server**, so Claude and other agents can draw, edit and export the
way a person does.
@ -150,7 +151,7 @@ cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- run --in examples/ribbons.vectorcraft
cargo run --release -p vectorcraft-cli -- bench examples/neon-drive.vectorcraft # render timing
cargo xtask bundle # dist/VectorCraft.app (macOS)
cd apps/vectorcraft-web && trunk build --release # web build → dist/web
cargo xtask ci # fmt, clippy, tests, layering, wasm
cargo xtask ci # fmt, clippy, tests, layering, wasm, vendor names
```
### Use it from Claude Code and other agents

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ROADMAP.md
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@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
# VectorCraft Roadmap
VectorCraft is a clean-room, open-source, pure-Rust reimplementation of the Adobe Illustrator workflow. It runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and the web (WASM), and agents can drive it fully over a JSON control channel and MCP.
VectorCraft is a clean-room, open-source, pure-Rust reimplementation of the industry-standard vector illustration workflow (called "the reference app" below). It runs on macOS, Windows, Linux and the web (WASM), and agents can drive it fully over 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), given both for **one agent** and for **4–6 parallel agents** on disjoint crates. They are counted from the remaining work (see [Parity estimate](#parity-estimate)), calibrated against measured throughput, and updated as work lands.
@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ _Last updated: 2026-10-04._
| Dimension | Status |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure (engine, command registry, history, render, formats, MCP, web, packaging, tests) | **~90%** |
| Look & feel vs Illustrator 2026 default workspace (measured) | **~75–80%** |
| Feature surface vs full Illustrator (weighted, see below) | **~65%** |
| Look & feel vs the reference app's 2026 default workspace (measured) | **~75–80%** |
| Feature surface vs the full reference app (weighted, see below) | **~66%** |
| Parity including interaction fidelity and hardening ("a power user can't tell the difference, but faster") | **~50%** |
| Time to **feature parity** (every menu item, tool, panel, effect and dialog functional) | **~330–500 h** one agent · **~85–140 h** with 4–6 agents |
| Time to **full parity** (feature parity + interaction-fidelity pass + hardening) | **~440–670 h** one agent · **~115–190 h** with 4–6 agents |
| Time to **feature parity** (every menu item, tool, panel, effect and dialog functional) | **~460–660 h** one agent · **~115–190 h** with 4–6 agents |
| Time to **full parity** (feature parity + interaction-fidelity pass + hardening) | **~570–830 h** one agent · **~145–235 h** with 4–6 agents |
### Shipped so far
- **Architecture:** 19+ crates with enforced layering (`cargo xtask layers`). Every action is a command (~400 engine + ~50 UI). Undo is unlimited via structural sharing. `command.batch` runs several commands as one transaction.
@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ _Last updated: 2026-10-04._
- MCP server with 25 tools (drawing, text, effects, Pathfinder, transforms, graphs, text wrap, export, screenshots, any command), attached to the running app or headless.
- Headless CLI (`vectorcraft-cli run`, `convert`, `info`, `bench`, `perf`, `mcp`).
- Actions panel that records and plays back commands.
- **UI:** Illustrator 2026 layout restyled to measured values:
- **UI:** the reference app's 2026 layout restyled to measured values:
- Medium Dark theme, categorized and Advanced toolbars, 35 pt document tabs, 33 pt panel tabs.
- Hint bar, contextual task bar, 19 dock panels with ≡ menus.
- Native macOS menu bar, vector tool cursors, a ⌘K command palette, middle-button panning with any tool.
@ -47,12 +47,20 @@ _Last updated: 2026-10-04._
- **Type:** Text Wrap, Type on a Path effects (Rainbow/Skew/3D Ribbon/Stair Step/Gravity), Character and Paragraph Styles (override-preserving redefine), Area Type Options (rows/columns/inset/first baseline), threaded text across any closed shapes, Fit Headline.
- **Transparency:** opacity masks (clip/invert/disable/link), exported as SVG `<mask>` and PDF soft masks.
- **Advanced art:** live Blends (steps/distance/smooth colour, spine), Envelope Distort (warp/mesh/top object), Gradient Mesh, Shape Builder, Live Paint, Image Trace (12 presets), pattern swatches with pattern editing mode, live Repeat (radial/grid/mirror).
- **Paint and appearance (M3):**
- **Swatches:** names follow the colour model and are unique; Swatch Options (process/spot, Global, Gray/RGB/HSB/CMYK/Web, live preview); editing a global or spot swatch recolours every linked fill, stroke and text run in one undo step; multi-select and delete with confirmation; New Swatch and New Color Group dialogs (a group from the selected artwork's colours); swatches in colour groups convert, separate and count like any other.
- **Colour:** a Color Picker (colour field, H/S/B/R/G/B channel slider, HSB/RGB/Lab/CMYK fields, hex, web-only snapping, out-of-gamut correction); the Color panel follows each colour's own model and Alt-click paints the other proxy; proxies look through groups and show "?" for mixed paint; Invert, Complement, Apply Last Color (`,`) and Apply Last Gradient (`.`) keep the colour model; every paint command feeds the recent colours.
- **Gradients:** lossless, validated gradient params; gradients follow rotate, reflect, shear, non-uniform scale and distortions; the Gradient tool edits the fill or stroke of the active proxy, type included; an interactive on-canvas annotator (move, length/angle, rotate, add/move/delete/duplicate stops, midpoints, a stop popover, Delete and arrow keys).
- **Strokes:** one stroke-geometry module shared by the canvas, SVG, PDF and Outline Stroke; dotted lines (zero-length dashes draw dots or squares); arrowheads with hollow outlines, tip-on-end or extend-past-end alignment and one opacity for line and head.
- **Appearance:** the Appearance panel's selected row drives every paint, stroke, gradient and transparency edit (`item` on the commands); effects apply to one fill or stroke; per-item Opacity popups; Mixed Appearances, Layers target dots and basic-appearance rules.
- **Masks and clipping:** opacity-mask controls work while the mask is being edited; transparency commands take ids and work without a selection; clipping sets clip by compound paths, even-odd paths, text and groups on screen and in raster export, matching SVG/PDF.
- **Neutral wording:** labels, MCP tool text, docs and packaging use neutral names, and `cargo xtask brands` (part of `cargo xtask ci`) fails on vendor names.
- **Colour, type and file workflows:** Recolor Artwork (dialog with harmonies), Edit Colors, Find & Replace, Change Case, Smart Punctuation, Guides, Lock/Hide Above, Transform Each, Rasterize.
- **Formats:**
- `.vectorcraft` (lossless JSON), SVG import/export, PDF export/import (including PDF-compatible `.ai`).
- PNG, JPEG and WebP export, Export for Screens, Place.
- **Performance:** 20k shapes + 1k texts render in 27 ms per full-retina frame (7.8 ms zoomed), 7× faster than the first version. The UI thread never blocks. The web build is 7.1 MB gzipped.
- **Tests:** ~700 automated tests: model-based property tests, a junk-parameter sweep over every command, golden renders, and MCP end-to-end tests over stdio.
- **Tests:** ~1,300 automated tests: model-based property tests, a junk-parameter sweep over every command, golden renders, and MCP end-to-end tests over stdio.
## Milestones and estimates
@ -61,7 +69,7 @@ _Last updated: 2026-10-04._
| M0 | Skeleton + vertical slice | ✅ done | — |
| M1 | Selection, transform, layers, MCP | ✅ mostly done (transform reference point snaps to anchors/centres; rotated persistent bbox pending) | 4–6 |
| M2 | Drawing tools + smart guides | ✅ mostly done (Flare, Reshape, Live Corners widget dragging landed; Shaper, Pen modifier nuances) | 15–20 |
| M3 | Paint & appearance (swatches, color, gradient, stroke, appearance, transparency, styles) | 🟡 paint command modules and dialogs split per area for parallel work; neutral labels and a `cargo xtask brands` CI gate for user-visible strings; panels done; opacity masks done (make/release, clip, invert, disable, link; render + SVG `<mask>` in/out + PDF soft mask); mask-editing mode (click the mask thumbnail; live update) done; freeform gradients pending | 18–27 |
| M3 | Paint & appearance (swatches, color, gradient, stroke, appearance, transparency, styles) | 🟡 M3.7–M3.29 done: swatch options, global/spot edits and colour groups; Color Picker and Color panel behaviour; proxy commands; gradients that follow every transform and an interactive annotator; shared stroke geometry, dotted lines, arrowheads; Appearance-panel targeting and per-item effects and opacity; opacity-mask editing reach; clipping by any shape; neutral labels with a vendor-name CI gate (opacity masks, mask-editing mode and the panels were already done). Pending (M3.30–M3.98, 33 packages): swatch panel depth and libraries, tints, gradient panel depth, freeform gradients and gradient on strokes, stroke export parity and Outline Stroke, dash alignment, stroke on type, width profiles, graphic style links and libraries, container appearance, Expand Appearance, knockout and isolation accuracy, overprint and the Attributes panel, Colour Guide and Recolor depth, Flatten Transparency | 160–200 |
| M4 | Files (native, SVG, PDF, raster, Export for Screens, clipboard interop) | 🟡 one engine loader/encoder for every frontend (desktop, web, CLI, control channel, headless MCP open native/SVG/SVGZ/PDF/.ai/.ait/PNG/JPEG/GIF/WebP/TIFF/BMP; `document.formats`; MCP `export` takes artboard/range/options; one PDF page per artboard in Export for Screens; template layers left out of raster exports); Export for Screens (PNG/JPG/WebP/SVG/PDF × scales) done; headless CLI/MCP export every format; system clipboard: copy puts SVG markup on it, paste takes SVG from other apps (Ctrl/Cmd+C/X/V now also work off macOS); live effects now survive SVG/PDF/clipboard export (geometry baked, SVG filters for shadows/glows/blur/feather); Save / Don't Save / Cancel before closing modified documents; PDF raster effects, PNG/PDF clipboard flavours, EPS/DXF pending | 52–73 |
| M5 | Performance | 🟡 background render + caches + MT done; `vectorcraft-cli bench` and `vectorcraft-cli perf` (budget suite); file format v2 opens 3× faster (50k paths: 722 → 244 ms); raster effects (glows, shadows, blur, feather) no longer force the whole frame single-threaded (filtered offscreen per effect, verified equal to the single-threaded reference); effect-heavy demos need a clean-machine benchmark; dirty-region rendering, GPU backend spike pending | 15–25 |
| M6 | Path operations (Pathfinder, Shape Builder, offset…) | ✅ mostly done (Shape Builder edge erase, large-offset bug open) | 3–6 |
@ -75,26 +83,28 @@ _Last updated: 2026-10-04._
| M14 | 1.0 polish (preferences, shortcut editor, workspaces, accessibility, packaging for all OSes) | 🟡 Preferences, shortcut editor, workspaces done; accessibility, Windows/Linux packaging pending | 20–30 |
| — | Interaction fidelity pass (every tool's modifiers, Properties panel per context, isolation, nuance) | ⬜ | 60–90 |
| — | Hardening at scale (big-file corpus, fuzzing, cross-platform + browser QA) | 🟡 | 50–80 |
| | **Total to full parity** (one agent; sum of the rows above — matches [Parity estimate](#parity-estimate)) | | **~440–670** |
| | **Total to full parity** (one agent; sum of the rows above — matches [Parity estimate](#parity-estimate)) | | **~570–830** |
## Parity estimate
_Method (2026-10-02):_ Illustrator's feature surface is split into 22 areas, weighted by how much of the app (and of
_Method (2026-10-02, M3 rows re-derived 2026-10-04):_ the reference app's feature surface is split into 22 areas, weighted by how much of the app (and of
real users' work) each represents. Each area is scored by depth of behaviour, not by presence of a menu item: an area
is 100% only when every feature in it behaves like Illustrator. Feature parity = Σ weight × score / Σ weight. Remaining
is 100% only when every feature in it behaves like the reference app. Feature parity = Σ weight × score / Σ weight. Remaining
time is counted per area from what is missing, calibrated on measured throughput: in the last session one agent landed
about 20 medium features (Text Wrap, Graphs, Effect → Pathfinder, export baking…) in ~16 h wall clock including builds
and CI on a heavily loaded machine — about 0.8 h per medium feature; large subsystems (3D, raster filters, vertical type)
are counted bottom-up.
are counted bottom-up. The M3 rows (colour, strokes, appearance) come from a detailed 92-task M3 plan whose review
found more missing depth than the first estimate; they are calibrated on its first wave, where 6 packages planned at
~61 h took ~39 agent-hours.
| Area | Weight | Done | Missing (main items) | One agent (h) |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| Selection, transform & align tools | 6 | 85% | rotated persistent bounding box, Start Global Edit, transform nuances | 4–6 |
| Drawing tools | 7 | 85% | Shaper Groups (merge/punch overlapping shapes), pen/pencil modifier nuances, Touch Type | 10–15 |
| Path operations, Pathfinder, Shape Builder, Live Paint | 5 | 85% | Live Paint gap options, Shape Builder edge cases | 3–6 |
| Colour, swatches, gradients, patterns, mesh, recolor | 7 | 75% | freeform gradients, swatch libraries (original), Tile Edge Color | 10–15 |
| Strokes, brushes, width profiles | 5 | 65% | brush options depth, brush libraries (generated in code) | 15–25 |
| Appearance, transparency, graphic styles, masks | 5 | 85% | Flatten Transparency, style libraries, mask view (Alt-click) | 6–10 |
| Colour, swatches, gradients, patterns, mesh, recolor | 7 | 80% | swatch panel depth and libraries (original), tints, linked gradient stops, freeform gradients, gradient on strokes, Expand, Colour Guide and Recolor depth, overprint, Tile Edge Color | 75–95 |
| Strokes, brushes, width profiles | 5 | 72% | stroke export parity and Outline Stroke fidelity, dash alignment, stroke on type, width profile library, Width tool depth, Scale Strokes, brush options depth, brush libraries (generated in code) | 28–38 |
| Appearance, transparency, graphic styles, masks | 5 | 87% | appearance editing depth, container appearance, graphic style links and libraries, knockout and isolation accuracy, Flatten Transparency, mask view (Alt-click) | 60–75 |
| Live vector effects | 5 | 85% | Outline Object, Pathfinder Hard/Soft Mix and Trap, SVG Filters | 6–10 |
| Raster effects (Effect Gallery, Document Raster Effects Settings) | 4 | 15% | ~55 filters (Artistic, Brush Strokes, Distort, Pixelate, Sketch, Texture…), resolution setting, raster effects in PDF | 30–45 |
| 3D and Materials | 4 | 0% | Extrude & Bevel, Revolve, Inflate, Rotate, lighting, materials (software renderer) | 50–80 |
@ -111,29 +121,29 @@ are counted bottom-up.
| Automation | 3 | 60% | Variables (data merge), scripting surface, batch | 8–12 |
| UI chrome (panels, contextual Properties, workspaces, prefs) | 6 | 75% | ~14 panels (Tabs, Links, Attributes, Asset Export, SVG Interactivity, Variables, CSS Properties…), Properties per context | 20–30 |
| Libraries, Links, Package | 2 | 15% | Links panel, Package, local libraries | 10–15 |
| **Feature parity** | **103** | **~65%** | | **~330–500** |
| Interaction-fidelity pass (side by side with Illustrator: every tool modifier, cursor, dialog, Properties context) | | | | 60–90 |
| **Feature parity** | **103** | **~66%** | | **~460–660** |
| Interaction-fidelity pass (side by side with the reference app: every tool modifier, cursor, dialog, Properties context) | | | | 60–90 |
| Hardening (big-file corpus, fuzzing, cross-platform and browser QA, accessibility, packaging) | | | | 50–80 |
| **Full parity** | | **~50%** | | **~440–670** |
| **Full parity** | | **~50%** | | **~570–830** |
With 4–6 agents working on disjoint crates (as the layering allows) the wall-clock time divides by roughly 3.5–4
(integration, review and shared files such as `menus.rs` serialize some work): **~85–140 h** to feature parity,
**~115–190 h** to full parity.
(integration, review and shared files such as `menus.rs` serialize some work): **~115–190 h** to feature parity,
**~145–235 h** to full parity.
_Inventories (2026-10-02):_ 426 engine commands + ~60 UI commands; 316 menu items wired, ~70 still disabled; 69 of 79
tools implemented (missing: Slice ×2, Touch Type, vertical type ×3, Print Tiling); 32 panels of ~45; 44 live
effects of ~110 (Illustrator effects 44/54, Photoshop-style raster effects 1/56); ~1,050 tests.
effects of ~110 (vector effects 44/54, raster effects 1/56); ~1,050 tests (~1,300 on 2026-10-04).
_Where we already beat Illustrator:_ exact curve booleans, off-thread multithreaded rendering, undo that never runs out,
_Where we already beat the reference app:_ exact curve booleans, off-thread multithreaded rendering, undo that never runs out,
lossless SVG/PDF export of live effects with SVG filters, a documented JSON format, the same app on the web, and every
command, gesture and dialog drivable by agents (MCP, CLI, control channel).
## Out of scope (by design or by law)
- **Native `.ai` private data:** it's undocumented. We read the PDF-compatible part, so Illustrator-only live objects arrive as appearance.
- **Adobe cloud services** (Libraries sync, Adobe Fonts, Firefly/generative): these are pluggable provider APIs, not built in.
- **Adobe's bundled assets** (swatch/brush/symbol libraries, presets, icons): ours are original.
- **Native `.ai` private data:** it's undocumented. We read the PDF-compatible part, so live objects only the reference app understands arrive as appearance.
- **The reference app's cloud services** (library sync, hosted fonts, generative features): these are pluggable provider APIs, not built in.
- **The reference app's bundled assets** (swatch/brush/symbol libraries, presets, icons): ours are original.
## Where we aim to be better than Illustrator
## Where we aim to be better than the reference app
- **Speed:** off-thread multithreaded rendering, instant startup, a responsive UI on huge files.
- **Robustness:** exact curve booleans (no "cannot perform operation"), property-tested undo/redo and file round trips.
- **Openness:** a documented native format, first-class SVG, and the same app in the browser.