vectorcraft/ROADMAP.md

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.

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), calibrated against measured throughput, and updated as work lands.

Last updated: 2026-10-05.

Where we are

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)	~68%
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)	~300–450 h one agent · ~75–130 h with 4–6 agents
Time to full parity (feature parity + interaction-fidelity pass + hardening)	~425–650 h one agent · ~105–185 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.
• Automation:
  • Actions panel (record/playback, persisted), generic parameter dialogs for every "…" command.
  • JSON-lines control channel with real egui pointer and keyboard injection.
  • 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:
  • 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.
  • Save / Don't Save / Cancel before closing or quitting with unsaved documents (tabs, Close, Close All, Quit, window close).
  • Four brightness themes, persistent preferences.
  • On Windows and Linux the app bar is the window's title bar (its own minimize, maximize and close buttons, drag to move, edges to resize), with the dragon app icon as the brand mark; dialogs and menus size to their content.
• Tools:
  • Selection: Selection, Direct/Group Selection, Magic Wand, Lasso.
  • Drawing: Pen, Curvature, anchor tools, Pencil, Paintbrush, Blob Brush, Smooth, Path Eraser, Join.
  • Shapes: all shape tools (including Flare) and the line, arc, spiral and grid tools.
  • Cutting: Eraser, Scissors, Knife.
  • Transform: Rotate, Reflect, Scale, Shear (click or Alt-click snaps the reference point to anchors and centres), Reshape, Free Transform (distort/perspective).
  • Live Corners: drag a live rectangle's corner widgets (Selection or Direct Selection) to round all corners, with a radius readout.
  • Graphs: Column, Stacked Column, Bar, Stacked Bar, Line, Area, Scatter, Pie and Radar graph tools with Graph Data and Graph Type.
  • Other: Eyedropper, Gradient annotator, Artboard, Measure, Type, Hand, Zoom, Rotate View.
• Drawing aids: Smart Guides and snapping, and Draw Normal / Behind / Inside modes.
• Geometry and effects:
  • Pathfinder (10 exact curve booleans), Offset, Outline Stroke, Simplify, Clean Up, Split Into Grid, Divide Objects Below.
  • Live effects with previewing dialogs: Distort & Transform, Path, Convert to Shape, 15 Warp styles, Round Corners, Scribble, Effect → Pathfinder (all 10 operations, live on groups), and raster drop shadow, glows and feather. SVG and PDF export keep live effects (geometry baked; SVG raster effects as filters).
• 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. The Swatches panel selects ranges and whole groups, has a find field, and drags swatches to reorder, regroup or paint art; Add Used Colors, Select All Unused, Merge, Ungroup and Sort by Kind; a CMYK document keeps applied colours in CMYK. Swatch libraries: nine generated colour libraries and five gradient libraries in a library panel, saved and loaded as .vcswatches, .gpl or CSS. Tints of global and spot colours ("Name 40%") stay linked and separate as a percentage of their plate. Spot colours can be defined in Lab (Spot Colors options). A built-in [Registration] swatch prints on every plate.
  • 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. The Color Guide has 21 harmony rules, Steps and Variation options and Limit to Library. Adjust Color Balance (its Global mode shifts tints) and Saturate preview live; Edit Colors and Recolor also reach meshes, images and patterns. Recolor Artwork has colour reduction, five recolour methods, presets, Limit to Library, a colour-wheel Edit tab and Edit Color Group; a local Color Themes panel saves five-colour themes. Fill/Stroke chips open swatch and mixer popovers, panels have their shortcuts, and Eyedropper Options pick up and apply chosen attributes (Alt and Shift+Alt, image pixels). Fills and strokes can overprint (Attributes panel, Overprint Black options), and CMYK documents blend in inks on screen, in PDF and when flattening.
  • 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). The Gradient panel has the Fill/Stroke proxy, a gradient-swatch dropdown with Save to Swatches, midpoint locations, Alt-drag to copy or swap stops, swatch drops on the ramp and a stop eyedropper; copied appearances and graphic styles place gradients on each target's own bounds; gradient handles snap and honour Constrain Angle. Gradient stops stay linked to global and spot swatches. Freeform gradients (points and lines) are edited on the canvas; radial gradients have an extent ellipse, an aspect handle and an off-centre focal point (SVG fx/fy, PDF two-point radials). A stroke's gradient runs within, along or across it. Object ▸ Expand turns gradients into N objects or a gradient mesh.
  • 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. SVG and PDF export arrowheads, width profiles, brushes and aligned strokes exactly as the canvas draws them; Outline Stroke and the live Outline Stroke effect outline every stroke item as drawn (dashes, heads, profiles, alignment); dashes can be fitted to corners and path ends; width profiles carry through dashes, and their corners take the join. The Stroke panel edits type's character strokes, follows the stroke units, shows mixed values blank and opens from the Control bar. A width profile library, thirty more arrowheads, and Width Point Edit with multi-select and discontinuous points. Visual bounds and clicks cover the whole painted stroke. Scale Strokes & Effects, Scale Corners and Use Preview Bounds work everywhere, and new art inherits stroke options, a graphic style or the whole last appearance.
  • 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. Effects can be reordered, moved between items and copied by dragging; Show All Hidden Attributes; clicking an effect edits it in place; the object thumbnail drags onto art; effects render on type, images, symbols, blends, envelopes, meshes and repeats, and per-item raster effects export. Groups, layers and type have their own fills, strokes and effects (Contents and Characters rows); the Layers panel's target circles target layers, groups and objects; Expand Appearance turns fills, strokes, effects and brushes into objects.
  • 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. Alt-click shows only the mask; SVG masks keep Clip and Invert; the transparency grid is per-document state; a clipping path's own fill and stroke paint behind and over the clipped art; layers can be clipping masks.
  • Transparency: three-state Knockout Group (on, neutral, off), Opacity & Mask Define Knockout Shape, Page Isolated Blending and Page Knockout Group, on screen and in SVG/PDF. Blend modes match the standard formulas on screen, in SVG and in PDF, and non-isolated groups blend with the art below. Flatten Transparency with presets, a dialog and a Flattener Preview panel.
  • Graphic styles: styles keep opacity and blend mode, capture groups and type, apply on top with Alt, and link to the objects using them; Redefine, Break Link, Graphic Style Options, Select All Unused, Sort by Name, and Select > Same Graphic Style / Appearance Attribute. The panel has list and thumbnail views with rendered previews, merge, reorder and drag and drop, plus a Control bar Style picker; six generated style libraries save and load as .vcstyles.
  • 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: ~1,900 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

#	Milestone	Status	Est. remaining, one agent (h)
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)	✅ done (M3.7–M3.98): swatches, groups, libraries, tints, Lab spots and Registration; Color Picker, Color panel, Color Guide, Color Themes, Edit Colors and Recolor Artwork; gradients that follow every transform, the annotator, linked stops, freeform gradients, focal points, gradients on strokes and Expand; stroke geometry, arrowheads, dashes fitted to corners, stroke on type, width profiles and the Width tool, Scale Strokes and preview bounds; Appearance targeting, container appearance, target circles, Expand Appearance; knockout, isolation, blend accuracy, CMYK blending, overprint, Attributes, masks and clipping, Flatten Transparency; graphic styles, links and libraries. Left: freeform and mixed spot/process gradients export as stops or process colours to SVG/PDF; flattener presets not yet used by PDF/print; confirm the Scale Strokes & Effects default	4–8
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 (Boolean precision on almost-horizontal edges fixed and the property tests made deterministic; Shape Builder edge erase, large-offset bug open)	3–6
M7	Type (point/area/path, editing, styles, OpenType, threading, glyphs)	🟡 Character/Paragraph Styles, Area Type Options, threaded text, Fit Headline, Glyphs, OpenType panel, Find Font, Text Wrap (offset, invert, both sides of an object; follows edits), Type on a Path effects, tab stops + Tabs panel done; tab leaders, spell check, vertical type pending	45–60
M8	Transform & distort (Puppet Warp, Liquify tools, Envelopes, Blends, Perspective Grid)	🟡 live Blends, Envelopes (warp/mesh/top object), Width tool, Liquify tools, Puppet Warp and Perspective Grid landed; fidelity pass pending	8–12
M9	Live effects (+ 3D & Materials)	🟡 2D effects done incl. Effect → Pathfinder; SVG Filters, Document Raster Effects Settings, 3D pending	86–135
M10	Brushes, symbols, patterns, Repeat	🟡 pattern swatches (5 tile types, Pattern Options, editing mode, SVG <pattern>/PDF export) and live Repeat (radial/grid/mirror) done; brushes/symbols in progress	23–37
M11	Artboards & views (artboard panel/tool done, Trim View, middle-button pan; print tiling, multiple windows, presentation polish)	🟡	20–33
M12	Advanced color & art (CMYK/ICC, separations, Gradient Mesh, Live Paint, Image Trace, Graphs)	🟡 Gradient Mesh, Live Paint, Image Trace (12 presets, 18 ms/1k² image), Recolor Artwork, colour management (ICC, soft proofing, separations preview), Graphs (all 9 tools, Graph Data/Type, regenerate in place) done; graph Design/Column/Marker designs pending	6–10
M13	Automation (Actions ✅ record/playback, persisted; variables, scripting, batch)	🟡	18–27
M14	1.0 polish (preferences, shortcut editor, workspaces, accessibility, packaging for all OSes)	🟡 Preferences, shortcut editor, workspaces, a custom title bar on Windows/Linux and content-sized dialogs and menus done; accessibility, Windows/Linux packaging pending	18–28
—	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)		~425–650

Parity estimate

Method (2026-10-02, M3 rows re-derived 2026-10-04): Illustrator'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 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. The M3 rows (colour, strokes, appearance) come from a detailed 92-task M3 plan whose review found more missing depth than the first estimate; all 92 tasks landed on 2026-10-04 and 2026-10-05 with 6–8 agents in parallel; its packages, planned at 5–11 h each, took about 1–1.5 agent-hours each, so the other rows (estimated on the older scale) are likely high.

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	96%	freeform and mixed spot/process gradients in SVG/PDF (exported as stops or process colours), pattern fills in Expand	2–4
Strokes, brushes, width profiles	5	88%	brush options depth, brush libraries (generated in code)	6–10
Appearance, transparency, graphic styles, masks	5	97%	flattener presets in PDF/EPS/print, raster effect reach in preview bounds	2–4
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
Type core	9	78%	composer/hyphenation options, Optical Margin Alignment, hidden characters	15–20
Type advanced	4	35%	vertical type/CJK, tab leaders, spell check (open dictionary), Touch Type, Retype	26–35
Symbols, blends, envelopes, Repeat, perspective	5	75%	symbol libraries (original), dynamic symbols, perspective edge cases	8–12
Image Trace, graphs, image tools	3	70%	graph Design/Column/Marker, Create Object Mosaic, Crop Image polish	6–10
Layers, artboards, document setup	5	80%	Layers panel options depth, artboard presets/rearrange polish	6–10
View & navigation	3	70%	New View/Edit Views, multiple windows/arrange, print tiling, Snap to Pixel/Glyph	10–15
Guides, grids, smart guides, snapping, rulers	3	75%	global/video rulers, smart-guide preference depth	4–8
File formats	6	60%	EPS in/out, DXF/DWG, PSD placement, PDF raster effects/presets	40–55
Export for Screens, Asset Export, slices, Save for Web	3	45%	Asset Export panel, slices, Save for Web	12–18
Print, colour management, separations, flattener	3	40%	Print dialog (platform), flattener presets, print presets	20–30
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	~68%		~300–450
Interaction-fidelity pass (side by side with Illustrator: 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		~52%		~425–650

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): ~75–130 h to feature parity, ~105–185 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 (~1,900 on 2026-10-05).

Where we already beat Illustrator: 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.

Where we aim to be better than Illustrator

• 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.
• Automation: every command, gesture, dialog and widget is drivable by agents (JSON channel + MCP), with headless batch mode.

How to update this file

After each milestone task lands, update the status column and remaining estimates, and move items into "Shipped so far". Keep estimates honest: re-derive them from what remains, never from wishful velocity.