Brandon ThomasandClaude Opus 5.5
a127c6d5c3
Progress docs per craftrules standards/progress-docs.md: target-app parity, gaps, roadmap with alpha gate, readiness by audience (full / mainstream / essentials) with Opus 5.5 hours, and feature, format, hardware, UI and localization parity docs. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
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DesignCraft roadmap (detail)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-10 · Change: minor (stage re-normalized to pre-alpha by the core-workflow gate; earlier today: major, milestones re-assessed; beta plan from the full re-measure) · Target: Adobe InDesign 2026 (21.6)
Forward-looking plan. The one-page summary is ROADMAP.md; numbers are in target-app-parity.md; the work list is gaps.md. Hours are Opus 5.5 agent-hours (calibration in target-app-parity.md). Driving the app from agents: agents.md.
Alpha gate
InDesign's core workflows: what a layout professional does with it every day. DesignCraft is alpha only when every one works end to end on macOS (its main platform) and the work saves and reopens. Gate result (2026-10-10): fails, so the stage is pre-alpha. Rows marked "no" are the alpha checklist; the partial rows don't block the workflow on macOS (there is a working path) but are next in line.
| Core workflow | Works end to end? | Evidence | Hours to pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set up a document (size, margins, columns, parent pages, page numbers, sections); save and reopen | yes | New Document, Document Setup, parent pages and overrides, Numbering & Section Options; .designcraft round-trip tests; recovery |
0 |
| Flow a long story across frames and pages: thread, unthread, autoflow | no | out/in ports drawn but no out-port click, loaded text cursor or thread/unthread command; only autoflow on Place and Primary Text Frame, which adds pages users can't delete (#165, #140, #194, #352) |
15–25 |
| Format text with paragraph and character styles | partial (not blocking) | Paragraph/Character Style Options, Quick Apply, based-on, nested/GREP styles work; style edit/delete from the panel reported (#169); formatting set at a caret is discarded (#289) | 6–12 |
| Place, crop and fit images; wrap text around them | yes | place gun, frame fitting and Fitting Options, content grabber, text wrap, Links panel | 0 |
| Arrange and edit objects: select, move, transform, duplicate, copy/paste, align, layers | partial (not blocking on macOS) | all present and working on macOS; Paste in Place lands on page 1 (#348); right-click menus fail for some macOS users (#160, #238); copy/paste and context menus fail on Windows/Linux (#351, #185, #164) | 10–20 |
| Export a print-ready PDF (bleed, marks, CMYK and spot, PDF/X-4) | yes | krilla export with subset fonts, Separations, marks and bleed, PDF/X-4 with validator; 53 PDF tests | 0 |
Exchanging files with InDesign users (open INDD, round-trip IDML) is a beta requirement, not part of the alpha gate: IDML works both ways today and INDD is gap 2.
Distance to alpha: ~15–25 h (the threading row). Ready for real work (~47%) is already above the ~40% alpha bar.
Current focus
In order. Each closes a beta blocker from gaps.md.
- Alpha gate: manual text threading (gap 0):
frame.thread/frame.unthreadcommands, out-port click with a loaded text cursor (click a frame or draw one), unthread by double-clicking a port, Primary Text Frame page fixes (#165). 15–25 h. - Basic editing works on every platform (gap 1): object copy/paste, Paste in Place, context menus, caret formatting, reproduced and pinned with control-channel tests on macOS, Windows and Linux. 30–50 h.
- CI on pull requests (gap 7):
cargo xtask cion every PR, at least macOS and Linux; Windows smoke start. 4–8 h. Needs the owner to make it a required check. - Open INDD (gap 2): decide with the owner how to bring in the clean-room converter (#114 indd-utils, #98), then INDD → IDML → existing importer, warnings shown. 20–60 h.
- IDML real-file corpus (gap 3): a pinned corpus, a survival metric, and fixes for #193, #338, #339, #340. 60–100 h.
- Composition oracle (gap 4): synthetic stories set in InDesign 2026 vs DesignCraft; optical kerning; the overset rule. 80–140 h.
- Start on any GPU; find every installed font (gaps 5, 6). 25–50 h.
Milestones
States re-assessed 2026-10-10 against the code and the issue tracker. "Done" means the feature set exists; depth gaps are in gaps.md.
| # | Milestone | State |
|---|---|---|
| M0 | Skeleton + vertical slice | ✅ |
| M1 | Selection, transform, layers, pages, MCP | ✅ core; handle and snapping issues (#186, #188, #337) |
| M2 | Type I (Type tool, threading, Character/Paragraph, composer) | partial: Type tool and composer ✅; manual threading missing (alpha blocker); caret formatting (#289); no IME (#322) |
| M3 | Styles (nested/GREP, bullets, keeps, span columns) | ✅; style editing reliability (#169) |
| M4 | Color & effects | ✅ core; colour management depth |
| M5 | Graphics & links | ✅ core; EPS preview only |
| M6 | Files & export (native, IDML, PDF, PNG/JPEG) | IDML ✅, PDF ✅ (X-4, A-2b, tagged); INDD ✗; PDF/X-1a/X-3 and presets ✗ |
| M7 | Long documents (sections, TOC, index, footnotes, books) | ✅ except Books (shallow) |
| M8 | Tables | ✅ core (table/cell styles, rotation); diagonal lines, anchored objects in cells (#163) |
| M9 | Performance (MT composition, tiles) | in progress: parallel compose 6.7×, damage regions; incremental composition next |
| M10 | Find/Change, spelling, Preflight | ✅ (spelling English only) |
| M11 | Layout power features (liquid/alternate layouts, data merge) | present, shallow; Flex Layout (new in InDesign 2026) ✗ |
| M12 | Interactive & digital (EPUB, HTML, interactive PDF) | present; HTML basic (#314), fixed-layout EPUB as images |
| M13 | Automation (scripts, batch) | ✅ own command scripts, CLI, MCP; ExtendScript/UXP compatibility ✗ |
| M14 | 1.0 polish & packaging | packaging ✅ (macOS, Windows x64/ARM64, Linux deb/AppImage/Flatpak, FreeBSD, web); polish not started |
| A1 | Alpha (core-workflow gate) | blocked by manual text threading; see Alpha gate |
| B1 | Beta (ready ≥ 75%, INDD/IDML reliable) | not started as a milestone; see below |
To beta
Beta needs ~75% ready for real work and no blocking gap in the main file format. From ~47% today that is ~28 points and 420–750 h (~120–200 wall-clock hours with four to five agents):
| Work | Gap | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Basic editing on every platform | 1 | 30–50 |
| INDD import | 2 | 20–60 |
| IDML real-file corpus and fixes | 3 | 60–100 |
| Composition oracle and fixes | 4, 13 | 80–140 |
| Start-up robustness, fonts | 5, 6 | 25–50 |
| CI, Windows/Linux runtime tests | 7, 14 | 35–70 |
| IME | 8 | 10–20 |
| PDF/X-1a/X-3, presets, print on Windows | 9, 10 | 65–110 |
| Styles, tables, missing menu items (the most-used half) | 11, 12, 16 | 60–100 |
| Long documents (Books) | 15 | 30–50 |
| Total | 420–750 |
After beta: to full parity
Remaining gaps 16–25: the rest of the menu long tail, HTML/EPUB depth, colour management, placed
graphics depth (PostScript), performance on large documents, localization to full in the
twelve languages, InDesign scripting compatibility (owner decision), AI features (owner decision),
accessibility. 730–1,200 h more; 1,150–1,950 h in total from today.
Superseded plan
The order the project followed until 2026-10-04 ("Next: books · New Window / split view · Ink Manager and Separations Preview · XML structure, tags and export · buttons and forms · PDF/X-4 output intent · EPS place") is done except Books depth and EPS (preview only).
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-10 | trivial | Ready figure 42% → 47% (method aligned with the standard); beta distance 28 points |
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Alpha gate table added (6 core workflows); gate fails on manual threading, stage pre-alpha; A1 milestone and focus item 0 |
| 2026-10-10 | major | Created: milestones moved from ROADMAP.md and re-assessed; Current focus and the beta plan from the full re-measure |