# irc.now Platform Roadmap

High-level vision and phase overview. Detailed implementation plans are written
per-phase as work begins.

## Vision

irc.now is a hosted IRC services platform. Sign up, get a bouncer. Upgrade to
pro, get a dedicated bouncer with a custom hostname. Host your own IRC network.
Run bots with Lua scripts. Share images and pastes. Everything connected
through one account with SSO.

## Phases

### Phase 1: Foundation

Get the core platform running: users can sign up, create a bouncer, and pay.

| Item | Description | Status |
|------|-------------|--------|
| Rust workspace | Monorepo with shared `common` crate | planned |
| GitOps manifests | CNPG clusters, namespace, RBAC, secrets | planned |
| Keycloak | Dedicated instance at `auth.irc.now`, `irc-now` realm, OIDC clients | planned |
| soju-operator | Existing 14-task plan, manages SojuBouncer CRDs | running on cluster |
| Account portal | `my.irc.now` -- Axum, OIDC auth, bouncer CRUD, Stripe billing | planned |
| Landing page | `irc.now` -- deploy existing static site, link to portal | built, not deployed to irc.now |

**Detailed plan:** `docs/plans/2026-03-03-irc-now-phase1-plan.md`

---

### Phase 2: Observability

Instrument everything before deploying more services. If it's not monitored,
it's not production.

| Item | Description |
|------|-------------|
| Prometheus | OCP built-in or deploy dedicated instance for irc-now metrics |
| Alertmanager | Alert rules: service down, reconciliation failures, cert expiry, DB connection loss |
| Grafana | Dashboards for platform health, operator status, per-service request rates |
| Metrics endpoints | `/metrics` on all Axum services (prometheus-client crate), operator reconciliation metrics |
| Alert delivery | Email initially, IRC ops channel via bot webhook relay once bots are built |

**Key metrics:**
- Axum: request rate, latency p50/p95/p99, error rate per route
- Operators: reconciliation loop duration, queue depth, error count
- CNPG: connection pool usage, replication lag, storage usage
- Keycloak: login success/failure rate, active sessions

---

### Phase 3: Supporting Services

The tools that make the platform useful beyond just a bouncer.

| Item | Description |
|------|-------------|
| chat.irc.now | Gamja web client, themed with design system CSS, connects via user's soju bouncer |
| txt.irc.now | Pastebin -- Axum, PostgreSQL storage, anonymous + authenticated, syntax highlighting, short URLs |
| irc.pics | Image host -- Axum, S3 storage, authenticated upload, thumbnail generation, short URLs |
| status.irc.now | Upptime on GitHub Pages, monitors all endpoints, CNAME to status.irc.now |

**Dependencies:** Phase 1 (auth, DB infrastructure) must be complete. Phase 2
(monitoring) should be in place so new services are instrumented from day one.

---

### Phase 4: Network Hosting

Let users run their own IRC networks.

| Item | Description |
|------|-------------|
| ergo-operator | Same kube.rs pattern as soju-operator, manages ErgoNetwork CRDs |
| ErgoNetwork CRD | Reconciles into Deployment (ergo), ConfigMap, Service, Route, Certificate, per-tenant DB |
| Portal integration | Network management tab in account portal -- create/configure/delete ergo instances |
| DNS | Wildcard `*.irc.now` or per-tenant subdomain creation |

**Architecture note:** ergo is MIT licensed, so if you need to patch it for
multi-tenant features (custom MOTD, connection limits, telemetry hooks) there
are no license constraints.

---

### Phase 5: Analytics

Understand how the platform is used. Inform product decisions.

| Item | Description |
|------|-------------|
| Event tracking | Record signups, logins, bouncer creates, plan upgrades, churn events in `accounts` DB |
| Business dashboards | Grafana dashboards: MRR, conversion rate, active users, retention cohorts |
| Per-user stats | Surface in account portal: bouncer uptime, networks connected, messages relayed, storage used |
| Stripe analytics | Revenue, failed payments, subscription lifecycle |

**Privacy note:** Analytics are first-party only. No third-party tracking.
Aggregate metrics in Grafana, per-user stats visible only to the user and ops.

---

### Phase 6: Bots

Managed IRC bot runtime. The differentiating feature.

| Item | Description |
|------|-------------|
| Bot runner | Rust service, manages bot instances in-process, one mlua (Lua 5.4) VM per bot |
| IRC connectivity | Bots connect through user's soju bouncer to any network |
| Built-in modules | Moderation (anti-spam, flood, pattern ban), utility (URL titles, !seen, stats), feeds (RSS, webhook relay, reminders) |
| Lua sandbox | Event-driven API: on_message/on_join/etc, IRC commands, KV store, timers, rate-limited http_get |
| Portal UI | Bot CRUD, module toggles, Lua script editor (Monaco/CodeMirror), live log viewer (WebSocket), KV browser |

**Runtime model:** All bots run in a single Deployment, multiplexed on async
IRC connections via tokio. Scales horizontally by sharding users across
replicas. No per-bot CRD -- configs live in the database. This keeps it simple
and avoids operator overhead for application-level multiplexing.

**Sandbox boundaries:** No `os`, `io`, `require`, `loadfile`. Scripts can only
call the IRC API and KV store. `http_get` is allowlisted and rate-limited. Each
Lua VM has a memory ceiling and instruction count limit.

---

## Cross-Cutting Concerns

### Auth
All services authenticate via Keycloak OIDC. The `common` crate provides Axum
middleware that validates tokens and extracts `UserClaims` (sub, email, plan,
stripe_customer_id). Gamja authenticates through a proxy that resolves the
user's bouncer endpoint.

### Design System
All user-facing HTML uses the irc.now design system: Newsreader/Outfit/JetBrains
Mono fonts, green-on-dark palette, IRC-native component patterns. Shared via
static CSS files from `design/tokens/` and `design/components/`.

### Deployment
Everything runs on OCP. Container images built via `oc builds` (multi-stage
Rust builds to UBI9-minimal). OCP Routes handle TLS termination per subdomain.
cert-manager issues certificates via LetsEncrypt. CNPG manages PostgreSQL.

### Database Strategy
Single CNPG cluster. Separate databases per service (keycloak, accounts, paste,
pics). Per-tenant databases for operators (soju_*, ergo_*). Operators hold
master credentials and create scoped roles per tenant.
