Module network Roadmap

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Roadmap-Hinweis: Vage Bullets ohne Akzeptanzkriterien in Checkbox-Tasks ueberfuehren. Format: - [ ] <Task> (Target: <Q/Jahr>).

Network Module Roadmap

Current Status

Production-grade transport and protocol layer with TCP wire protocol, WebSocket, UDP paths, QUIC/HTTP3, and gRPC components in active use.

In Progress

• [~] Network hardening wave for protocol safety, transport resilience, and predictable latency behavior (Target: Q3 2026)
  • Complete remaining failure-injection coverage for multi-transport edge cases (Target: Q3 2026) — NMT-01..NMT-08 in tests/network/test_network_hardening_phase2_focused.cpp
  • Tighten auth/rate-limit/session guard behavior under sustained adversarial traffic (Target: Q3 2026) — NAG-01..NAG-08 in tests/network/test_network_hardening_phase2_focused.cpp
• approved next implementation block: mixed-transport failure injection and adversarial guard hardening delivered (Q3 2026)

Planned Features

Short-term (3-6 months)

• Expand transport-level regression coverage for mixed TCP/WS/UDP/QUIC deployments (Target: Q4 2026) — NTR-08 in tests/network/test_network_transport_resilience_focused.cpp
• Strengthen distributed routing and failover diagnostics for operator triage (Target: Q4 2026) — NRH-06..NRH-07 in tests/network/test_network_routing_hardening_focused.cpp
• Harden connection lifecycle guardrails (limits, backpressure, timeout interplay) under peak load (Target: Q4 2026) — NLG-01..NLG-08 in tests/network/test_network_lifecycle_guardrails_focused.cpp

Mid-term (6-12 months)

• [~] Improve protocol-path performance consistency with benchmark-backed promotion gates (Target: Q1 2027) — NRG-P1..NRG-P4 stub benchmarks created in benchmarks/network/bench_network_protocol_path.cpp; hardware baselines pending Wave D sign-off
• [~] Expand resilience validation for mesh/topology-aware routing under partial failures (Target: Q1 2027) — stress coverage delivered via HighConcurrencyConnectionStress + MixedFrameTypeHighCardinality in tests/network/test_network_highcardinality_stress.cpp; full mesh/topology benchmarks pending
• [~] Advance transport observability and security telemetry fidelity across all network front doors (Target: Q1 2027) — operator runbook and D1 trace span cross-links delivered in docs/operability/RUNBOOK_NETWORK_TRANSPORT.md; instrumentation targets listed for Phase 2A

Distributed Maturity Phase 3 — Track 2 Items (Q3–Q4 2026)

These items are part of the next-phase Track 2: Distributed Systems Maturity — 3.5 Network plan (see ROADMAP.md §Track 2). Hard gate per item: deterministic under-load benchmark + release_critical CI green.

• HTTP/3 QUIC production enablement: promote the existing QUIC/HTTP3 implementation from experimental to production-default for external API endpoints; validate connection migration and 0-RTT resumption under realistic packet-loss profiles (Target: Q3 2026)
  • Acceptance: QUIC connection migration test passes at 1% simulated packet loss; 0-RTT handshake succeeds on reconnect within 50 ms; HTTP/3 throughput ≥ HTTP/2 baseline; release_critical green
  • Evidence: NQP-01..NQP-06 in tests/network/test_network_lifecycle_guardrails_focused.cpp
• Zero-copy socket I/O: ZeroCopyFrameBuilder::writeToWithSendfile() wires sendfile(2)/splice(2) for large payload sends on TCP paths (Linux / macOS / FreeBSD); falls back to writev() on platforms without support or for small payloads (< 64 KiB threshold) (Target: Q4 2026)
  • Inputs: payload_fd, payload_offset, sendfile_threshold (default 64 KiB)
  • Acceptance: sendfile path active for payloads ≥ 64 KiB on Linux; writev fallback for small payloads and non-Linux; no regression for small payloads; release_critical green
  • Evidence: include/network/wire_protocol_zero_copy.h writeToWithSendfile(); src/network/wire_protocol_zero_copy.cpp

Implementation Phases

Phase 1: Protocol and Session Safety

• Freeze network module API contract — connection lifecycle, frame validation, auth/session guards, transport fallback, rate-limiting, error taxonomy (include/network/network_api_contract.h) (Target: Q3 2026)
• Define explicit NetworkErrorCode taxonomy (FRAME_INVALID, AUTH_REQUIRED, SESSION_EXPIRED, TRANSPORT_CLOSED, RATE_LIMITED, BACKPRESSURE_EXCEEDED, QUORUM_DEGRADED, …) (Target: Q3 2026)
• Re-validate auth/session checks and frame/input validation across all major opcode/transport paths (Target: Q3 2026)
• Extend deterministic regression packs for malformed frame and rate-limit abuse scenarios (Target: Q3 2026)

Phase 2: Multi-Transport Resilience

• Strengthen failure handling across TCP, WebSocket, UDP, QUIC/HTTP3, and gRPC paths (Target: Q4 2026) — NTR-01..NTR-08 in tests/network/test_network_transport_resilience_focused.cpp
• Validate transport fallback/retry behavior under network degradation (Target: Q4 2026) — NTR-01..NTR-02 (retry policy exhaustion + bounded backoff), NTR-05..NTR-06 (gRPC fallback sequence)
• Expand transport-level regression coverage for mixed TCP/WS/UDP/QUIC deployments (Target: Q4 2026) — NTR-08 (mixed multi-transport failure injection)

Phase 3: Routing and Topology Hardening

• Expand routing correctness checks under changing health/latency/topology signals (Target: Q4 2026) — NRH-01..NRH-08 in tests/network/test_network_routing_hardening_focused.cpp
• Harden load-balancing state transitions and recovery behavior under churn (Target: Q4 2026) — NRH-03..NRH-05 (LB state machine correctness, churn tolerance)
• Strengthen distributed routing and failover diagnostics for operator triage (Target: Q4 2026) — NRH-06..NRH-07 (failover preference order, region-down routing)

Phase 4: Performance and Operational Hardening

• Contract-hardening focused tests NCH-01..NCH-16 covering frame validation, auth/session, rate-limit, and connection lifecycle invariants (tests/network/test_network_contract_hardening_focused.cpp) (Target: Q1 2027)
• Harden connection lifecycle guardrails (limits, backpressure, timeout interplay) under peak load (Target: Q4 2026) — NLG-01..NLG-08 in tests/network/test_network_lifecycle_guardrails_focused.cpp
• QUIC production readiness: connection migration, 0-RTT contract sanity, throughput invariants (Target: Q3 2026) — NQP-01..NQP-06 in tests/network/test_network_lifecycle_guardrails_focused.cpp
• Re-baseline protocol throughput and tail-latency envelopes across representative production mixes (Target: Q1 2027)
• Keep compression/batching/zero-copy overhead bounded under high concurrency (Target: Q1 2027)

Phase 5: Documentation and Release Readiness

• Lock benchmark-backed release gates for network hot paths: NRG-01..NRG-06 in benchmarks/network/bench_network_release_gates.cpp (TCP dispatch p99≤200µs, auth check p99≤100µs, rate-limit p99≤50µs, WS dispatch p99≤300µs, accept p99≤1ms, serialize p99≤100µs) (Target: Q3 2026)
• Extended routing/CB/lifecycle benchmark gates: NRG-07..NRG-12 in benchmarks/network/bench_network_routing_gates.cpp (topology select, LB forward, CB shouldAllow, connection limit, queue gate, session guard) (Target: Q4 2026)
• Keep network docs source-aligned with explicit sourcecode verification evidence per cycle (Target: ongoing)
• Keep completed roadmap items exclusively in changelog (Target: ongoing)

Production Readiness Checklist

• Tracking in progress
• Contract header frozen: include/network/network_api_contract.h (Phase 1)
• Contract-hardening tests: tests/network/test_network_contract_hardening_focused.cpp (Phase 4, NCH-01..NCH-16)
• Phase 2 hardening tests: tests/network/test_network_hardening_phase2_focused.cpp (NMT-01..NMT-08 multi-transport failure injection, NAG-01..NAG-08 adversarial auth/rate-limit guard hardening)
• Phase 2 transport resilience tests: tests/network/test_network_transport_resilience_focused.cpp (NTR-01..NTR-08 retry policy, backpressure, gRPC fallback, pool drain, mixed injection)
• Phase 3 routing hardening tests: tests/network/test_network_routing_hardening_focused.cpp (NRH-01..NRH-08 topology routing, LB state machine, circuit breaker)
• Phase 4 lifecycle guardrail tests: tests/network/test_network_lifecycle_guardrails_focused.cpp (NLG-01..NLG-08 lifecycle, NQP-01..NQP-06 QUIC readiness)
• Release-gate benchmarks: benchmarks/network/bench_network_release_gates.cpp (Phase 5, NRG-01..NRG-06)
• Extended routing/CB/lifecycle benchmarks: benchmarks/network/bench_network_routing_gates.cpp (Phase 5, NRG-07..NRG-12)
• Benchmark CMakeLists registered: benchmarks/network/CMakeLists.txt
• AdaptiveCircuitBreaker per-error-class thresholds: include/network/adaptive_circuit_breaker.h + src/network/adaptive_circuit_breaker.cpp; NCB-PEC-01..08 in tests/network/test_network_cb_per_error_class_focused.cpp
• Zero-copy sendfile/splice for large payloads: ZeroCopyFrameBuilder::writeToWithSendfile() in include/network/wire_protocol_zero_copy.h + src/network/wire_protocol_zero_copy.cpp
• HTTP/3 QUIC production enablement: NQP-01..NQP-06 contract tests; QuicTransport production-ready (THEMIS_ENABLE_HTTP3)
• New public headers: multipath_tcp.h, bbr_congestion_control.h, network_observability.h (implementations in src/network/)
• EnvoyXDSClient xDS subscription lifecycle documented: src/network/ARCHITECTURE.md §8
• Nachweise: network focused tests, transport integration tests, protocol security regressions, performance suites
• Hinweis: Abgeschlossene Arbeit wird ausschliesslich in CHANGELOG dokumentiert.

Known Issues and Limitations

• Some cross-transport fault combinations still need broader evidence under long-duration stress.
• Certain route/mesh/topology scenarios require additional benchmark and resilience validation.
• Operator-facing diagnostics for complex multi-transport incidents continue to be refined.

Breaking Changes

• Network public APIs and protocol evolution in active major lines remain additive-first.
• Any behavior change requiring client migration must be versioned and documented in changelog/migration notes.

Program Execution Model — Wave Context

This module is a contributing module in the program-level Wave A → B → C → D execution model. It does not own a primary wave deliverable but must remain release_critical-green throughout all waves and must deliver Wave D operability improvements in Q1 2027. See ../../ROADMAP.md for the full wave model and exit criteria.

Wave D Contribution for network

• Deliver or validate distributed tracing, high-cardinality stress coverage, exporter reliability, and operator remediation hints as applicable to this module (Target: Q1 2027) — delivered 2026-09-16: high-cardinality stress in tests/network/test_network_highcardinality_stress.cpp; runbook in docs/operability/RUNBOOK_NETWORK_TRANSPORT.md; D1 trace span cross-links documented
• Wire-Protocol Session-State Strand Safety: Replace shared payload_buffer_ / header_buffer_ members with per-dispatch copies or a net::strand to eliminate I/O-thread / worker-thread race under pipelining (wire_protocol_server.cpp). (Target: Q1 2027) — fixed 2026-09-16: per-dispatch capture-by-value + RAII scope-swap pattern in dispatchToWorkerPool(); THREAD SAFETY comments added at all changed sites
• Contribute to or validate long-duration soak test coverage for this module's primary paths (Target: Q1 2027) — delivered 2026-09-16: tests/integration/test_network_protocol_soak.cpp (TCP dispatch throughput, WS frame RTT, connection lifecycle stability)
• Ensure runbook coverage for operator-critical scenarios in this module (Target: Q1 2027) — delivered 2026-09-16: docs/operability/RUNBOOK_NETWORK_TRANSPORT.md (6 scenarios: TCP/WS/QUIC connection failure, frame validation errors, rate-limit/backpressure, circuit breaker, WS auth, gRPC fallback)

Cross-Wave Requirements

• release_critical CI must remain green on develop throughout all waves (Target: ongoing)
• p95/p99 benchmarks must be refreshed on representative hardware before Wave D sign-off (Target: Q1 2027)
• No behavioral regression may be introduced into modules in Wave A/B/C scope from changes in this module.

Program-Level Success Criteria (contribution)

• This module's distributed/acceleration paths fail closed (Target: Q1 2027) — confirmed: wire-protocol strand-safety fix eliminates race; all auth/frame/rate-limit paths remain fail-closed per NCH-01..NCH-16
• Benchmark-backed p95/p99 baselines exist on representative hardware (Target: Q1 2027) — NRG-P1..NRG-P4 stub benchmarks created; hardware baselines pending Wave D sign-off
• Operator-critical paths have diagnostics, alerts, and runbooks (Target: Q1 2027) — docs/operability/RUNBOOK_NETWORK_TRANSPORT.md delivered 2026-09-16

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Wave D Closure Batch (2026-09-16)

All four Wave D open items for the network module were closed in this batch:

Item	Type	Evidence
Wire-protocol strand safety fix	[I] → [x]	dispatchToWorkerPool() in src/network/wire_protocol_server.cpp — per-dispatch RAII scope-swap; THREAD SAFETY comments added
High-cardinality stress coverage	[ ] → [x]	tests/network/test_network_highcardinality_stress.cpp — HighConcurrencyConnectionStress (500 conns), MixedFrameTypeHighCardinality (500 frames), CircuitBreakerUnderHighErrorRate
Long-duration soak test	[ ] → [x]	tests/integration/test_network_protocol_soak.cpp — TCP dispatch throughput (≥ 1000 ops/sec), WS frame RTT (p99 ≤ 200 µs), connection lifecycle stability
Operator runbook	[ ] → [x]	docs/operability/RUNBOOK_NETWORK_TRANSPORT.md — 6 scenarios + D1 trace span cross-links

Mid-term planned features advanced to [~]:

• NRG-P1..NRG-P4 protocol-path benchmarks created (benchmarks/network/bench_network_protocol_path.cpp); hardware baselines pending
• Resilience stress coverage expanded; full mesh/topology benchmarks pending
• Observability runbook and D1 span targets documented; instrumentation pending Phase 2A

Validated date: 2026-09-16

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