Sith implementation roadmap

[gnanirahulnutakki]

Sith implementation roadmap

One Go binary, two faces on one shared engine: a day-0 local fleet client (the adoption wedge) and a day-N governed hub (the durable moat). Full plan: reshape PR #17 · docs/SITH-NOTION.md · docs/EPICS.md · docs/ROADMAP.md · docs/BUILD-SEQUENCE.md (PR #40) · docs/research/USE-CASE-AND-SHAPE.md · docs/research/MARKET-RESEARCH-2026-07.md (PR #45).

The reframing: you earn the right to govern a fleet by first being the tool the engineer already uses to see it. Lead with the read wedge; governance is the moat, not the on-ramp.

Sequencing discipline (never violated): local before hub · read before write · PR before mutation · exec never · prod never auto.

The three wedges (market research July 2026): (a) the adoption wedge — "k9s for your whole fleet", an OSS no-account cross-cluster-by-default local client, a slot still empty in OSS (Aptakube closed+paid, k9s declined ×3, Headlamp per-cluster); (b) the durable moat — governed typed-intent action federation with AI as a governed client; (c) newly evidenced inside the moat — a deterministic, offline, rule-based Investigation Brain (E14) occupying the gap between dumb dashboards and non-deterministic LLM SRE-agents.

Milestones → epics

Phase L — local mode (day 0) · adoption wedge — milestone

Delivered as the ordered, always-green slices of docs/BUILD-SEQUENCE.md:

• Slice 0: Foundation walking-skeleton (repo, CLI, fleet.Source seam, green CI) #47 · Slice 0 — foundation walking-skeleton (fleet.Source seam + CI); seeds E9
• E11: Local fleet client (the adoption wedge) #29 · E11 — Local fleet client (sith CLI/TUI + sith ui) — children Slice 0: Foundation walking-skeleton (repo, CLI, fleet.Source seam, green CI) #47 F2.1 (reshape): Source-abstract fleet model + local-kubeconfig source adapter #38 F11.1: Kubeconfig auto-detect + client-side fan-out #32 F11.2: Cache-first fleet render (CLI + TUI) #33 F11.3: Local web "fleet IDE" (sith ui) #34 F11.5: Per-pod table stakes (logs / exec / port-forward / YAML) #35 F11.6: No-account / no-telemetry / keychain custody #36 F14.5: Local advisory Investigation Brain (R1–R6 over reachable lenses) #48 F11.7: import kubeconfig directories into the local fleet IDE #162 F11.8: native macOS desktop shell for the local fleet IDE #166
• F2.1 (reshape): Source-abstract fleet model + local-kubeconfig source adapter #38 · E2·F2.1 (Slice 1) — source-abstract fleet model + local-kubeconfig adapter
• F11.1: Kubeconfig auto-detect + client-side fan-out #32 · E11·F11.1 (Slice 1) — kubeconfig auto-detect + client-side fan-out
• F11.2: Cache-first fleet render (CLI + TUI) #33 · E11·F11.2 (Slice 2) — cache-first fleet render + cross-cluster search
• F11.5: Per-pod table stakes (logs / exec / port-forward / YAML) #35 · E11·F11.5 (Slice 3) — per-pod table stakes
• F11.3: Local web "fleet IDE" (sith ui) #34 · E11·F11.3 (Slice 4) — local web fleet IDE (sith ui)
• F11.6: No-account / no-telemetry / keychain custody #36 · E11·F11.6 (Slice 5) — no-account / no-telemetry / keychain custody
• F7.1: MCP read tools (sith serve --mcp) #37 · E7·F7.1 (Slice 6) — MCP read tools (sith serve --mcp)
• F14.5: Local advisory Investigation Brain (R1–R6 over reachable lenses) #48 · E14·F14.5 — local advisory Investigation Brain (R1–R6 over reachable lenses)
• F11.7: import kubeconfig directories into the local fleet IDE #162 · E11·F11.7 — bounded privacy-first kubeconfig-directory import for the local fleet IDE
• F11.8: native macOS desktop shell for the local fleet IDE #166 · E11·F11.8 — native macOS desktop shell for the local fleet IDE
• E9: Deployment and packaging #27 · E9 (Slice P, parallel) — packaging & supply chain (does not gate Slices 1–6)
  • Release baseline: v0.3.0-beta.3 published with a signed macOS-arm64 CLI, sith ui, and sith desktop; the E9 deployment epic remains open.
  • Next E9 slice: P1 E9 F9.1b: Publish signed multi-arch hub OCI images #169 — publish the signed multi-architecture hub OCI manifest needed for an actual Helm installation.

M0 — falsification (PASSED · ADR-0001 Accepted) — milestone

• E0: OCM substrate and falsification #18 · E0 — OCM substrate & falsification (children M0: Provision OCM hub + 2 kind/k3d spokes (lab) #2–M0: Record falsification verdict in ADR-0001 + runbook #6)

P1 — read federation — milestone

• E1: Tenancy and identity #19 · E1 — Tenancy & identity — multi-auth (kubeconfig/API key/JWT/OIDC/cloud IAM; client-go ExecCredential v1); children P1: Workspace tenancy + signed-token authn (no header trust) #7 P1: DB-level RLS backstop (non-owner role, FORCE RLS, per-request scope) #8 P1: Tenant-isolation test suite (cross-workspace denied at DB layer) #12
• E2: Read federation #20 · E2 — Read federation (source-abstract) + four-lens graph F2.6/F2.7 (OTel semconv keys); children P1: Read-federation service — normalized fleet model across 2 spokes #9 P1: Cross-cluster correlation query #10 F2.1 (reshape): Source-abstract fleet model + local-kubeconfig source adapter #38 P1: Establish four-lens EntityRef graph contract with pinned OTel join keys #105 P1: Normalize legacy brain image evidence before fleet-wide correlation #106
• E14: Investigation Brain (deterministic, rule-based, abstaining root-cause) #46 · E14 — Investigation Brain (deterministic four-lens root-cause; local advisory subset F14.5: Local advisory Investigation Brain (R1–R6 over reachable lenses) #48 in Phase L)
• E8: Operator console (UI) #26 · E8 — Operator console (UI)
• E10: Observability and SRE for Sith itself #28 · E10 — Observability & SRE for Sith itself

P2 — first governed write — milestone

• E3: Credential and key custody #21 · E3 — Credential & key custody
• E4: Action federation #22 · E4 — Action federation (gitops.open-pr; enforce-at-execution F4.5 = CVE-2026-46519 fix)
• E6: Audit and decision ledger #24 · E6 — Audit & decision ledger

P3 — policy federation + MCP write — milestone

• E5: Policy federation and governance #23 · E5 — Policy federation (waves / approvals / MCP elicitation / abstention) — child P1: Policy-hook seam at intent boundary (allow for reads) #11
• E7: Governed MCP server #25 · E7 — Governed MCP server (write surface; MCP-2026 OAuth 2.1 + RFC 8707 audience binding)

Fast-follow — milestone

• E12: Connector framework #30 · E12 — Connector framework — integration waves W1–W4 (W1 daily core = K8s + Argo + GitHub + Prometheus + a log store = the coverage E14's six rules need)
• E13: Cost read-overlay #31 · E13 — Cost read-overlay (OpenCost rollup + GPU columns)

Standards-alignment gates (market research §5; standards-alignment label)

These are cross-cutting acceptance gates, not a separate epic:

• MCP 2026-07-28 RC — OAuth 2.1 + RFC 8707 audience-bound tokens; enforce-at-execution not just discovery (CVE-2026-46519, CVSS 8.8) → E7 E7: Governed MCP server #25, E4 E4: Action federation #22. Build to stable primitives; the RC surface will churn.
• OpenTelemetry Kubernetes semconv — the join keys for the four-lens graph (k8s.cluster.name, k8s.namespace.name, k8s.pod.name, k8s.node.name, stable container.image.repo_digests) → E2 E2: Read federation #20 F2.7.
• client-go ExecCredential v1 (client.authentication.k8s.io/v1) — kubeconfig exec-plugin auth; never persist cloud tokens → E1 E1: Tenancy and identity #19, E11 F11.6: No-account / no-telemetry / keychain custody #36.
• SLSA L2 + Sigstore/cosign + SBOM — from the first tag, a day-one release gate → E9 E9: Deployment and packaging #27 (supply-chain).
• Kubernetes API conventions — the normalized fleet model reads as idiomatic Kubernetes → E2 E2: Read federation #20.

Capability coverage (owner's list → epic)

• Lens-IDE / local fleet client → E11 E11: Local fleet client (the adoption wedge) #29 · aggregation-first, cross-cluster-by-default (the empty OSS slot)
• Deterministic root-cause (no LLM in path) → E14 E14: Investigation Brain (deterministic, rule-based, abstaining root-cause) #46 (advisory F14.5: Local advisory Investigation Brain (R1–R6 over reachable lenses) #48 in Phase L)
• Connector framework (waves W1–W4) → E12 E12: Connector framework #30
• Cost analyzer → E13 E13: Cost read-overlay #31 (fast-follow)
• MCP server + Claude/Codex + governing LangChain/LangGraph as governed clients → E7 E7: Governed MCP server #25
• Minions + multi-auth (kubeconfig/API key/JWT/OIDC/cloud IAM) → E0 E0: OCM substrate and falsification #18 / E1 E1: Tenancy and identity #19
• Policy federation (waves/approvals/abstention) → E5 E5: Policy federation and governance #23
• Multi-cloud incl. ACK/CCE/TKE + air-gap (China/India) → E1 E1: Tenancy and identity #19 / E9 E9: Deployment and packaging #27 / E12 E12: Connector framework #30 (two-layer cloud abstraction)
• Jira/Zendesk ITSM → E12 E12: Connector framework #30 (later wave)

Falsification gate holds: E1 onward was gated on E0 (now PASSED). Phase L ships day-0 without OCM.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

M0 falsification is complete and accepted through PR #73, merged into dev at 017eec0.

Closure evidence:

• issues M0: Provision OCM hub + 2 kind/k3d spokes (lab) #2, M0: Enable cluster-proxy + managed-serviceaccount addons (pin v0.10.0) #3, M0: Reach a spoke's in-cluster Grafana/Argo CD from the hub via scoped token #4, M0: Verify spoke connections are outbound-only #5, and M0: Record falsification verdict in ADR-0001 + runbook #6 are closed as completed;
• one hub plus two spokes passed from a clean start in 151 seconds;
• both managed clusters and all cluster-proxy / managed-serviceaccount addons reached Available=True;
• distinct least-privilege projected identities reached each spoke fixture while secrets and nodes remained denied;
• active hub-to-spoke denial was counter-bound and reverse-tunnel conntrack direction was verified;
• PR CI run 29172067820 and post-merge dev CI run 29172228828 are green, including the real two-cluster gate and reproducible release checks;
• Dependabot, code-scanning, and secret-scanning open queues are all zero;
• cleanup left zero kind clusters and zero M0 scratch directories.

Durable artifacts are the accepted ADR, executable runbook, fail-closed runner, redacted asciicast, and GSTACK session journal merged by PR #73.

The overall roadmap remains open; the next delivery lane continues in Phase L.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

P1 progress: completed E1 child #7 through PR #75, merged to dev at 81fd793 after green local, PR, and post-merge gates. The E1 epic #19 intentionally remains open because forced PostgreSQL RLS (#8), the destructive isolation suite (#12), and remaining multi-auth acceptance are not yet complete.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

P1 progress: completed E1 child #8 through PR #77, merged to dev at 122a5f2 after green local, PR, and post-merge PostgreSQL/kind gates. E1 #19 remains open for #12 and the separately tracked multi-auth acceptance.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

P1 progress: completed E1 isolation child #12 through PR #79, merged to dev at 8a01300 after green local, PR, and post-merge mutation/fuzz/PostgreSQL/kind gates. All F1.1–F1.6 isolation features in #19 are checked; the epic remains open for its separately added multi-auth/ExecCredential acceptance.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

P1 progress: completed E1 local ExecCredential acceptance #81 through PR #82, merged to dev at 1772b1d after green local, PR, and exact post-merge gates. E1 #19 remains open rather than being falsely closed: residual hub multi-auth is now explicitly tracked by #83 (API-key exchange), #84 (pinned OIDC federation), and #85 (short-lived cloud-IAM identity normalization).

[gnanirahulnutakki]

E1 progress: API-key exchange #83 completed via PR #89 and dev merge 4dfe40b. Exact post-merge run 29181529406 passed race, forced PostgreSQL RLS, real two-cluster kind, reproducible archives, SPDX SBOM, and formula gates. E1 remains open for #84 and #85.

[gnanirahulnutakki]

E1 progress: pinned OIDC federation #84 completed via PR #90 and dev merge 17ff537. Exact post-merge CI 29182688450 passed core race tests, forced PostgreSQL RLS isolation, real two-cluster kind fan-out, reproducible archive/SPDX SBOM, and vulnerability gates. E1 #19 remains open only for cloud-IAM identity normalization #85.