LA Roadmap / TOC — Time Machine and beyond

[vailuc]

This is the living roadmap / table of contents for the Logic Analyzer (LA) subsystem after the feat/la-protocols merge. Each item below links to its own GitHub issue with background, acceptance criteria, and discussion history.

✅ Recently completed

• 2026-07-07 — feat/la-lin-decoder merged to main

  • LIN protocol decoder: break detection, sync byte, PID with parity, data bytes per LIN 2.x spec, classic/enhanced checksum, frame navigation.
  • UI integration: LIN tab in LaDecodersPanel, canvas overlays in LaCanvas, frame navigation in WaveformLaView.
  • Auto-detection: inferDecoderDefaults and autoDetectLaProtocol recognize LIN from labels and signal characteristics.
  • New sigrok fixtures: CAN (mcp2515 125k), 1-Wire (ds18b20), synthetic LIN (2 frames at 19200 baud).
  • Known limitation: CAN decoder lacks bit destuffing — issue #14.
  • 150 tests passing.

• 2026-07-04 — LA UX work stream merged to main (rc19–rc23)

  • Viewport overview / minimap (rc19): full-capture thumbnail with highlighted viewport and click/drag navigation.
  • Trigger indicator (rc20): green dashed line, "T" label, and out-of-view arrows.
  • Cursor improvements (rc21): draggable waveform cursors, floating readout, keyboard shortcuts (C, V, Esc).
  • Interaction polish (rc22): cursor/trigger controls in the toolbar, right-click context menu, protocol channel labels, 0/+/-/arrow keyboard shortcuts.
  • Agent-review quick-wins (rc23): channels-only sidebar, faint gridlines, pinned label column, bottom cursor measurement rail, pill-style decoder tabs, larger toolbar buttons, decoder panel debounce for zoom responsiveness.

• 2026-07-03 — fix/la-autodetect merged to main (rc16)

  • Fixed label-based protocol conditions in autoDetectLaProtocol so they only match when the corresponding label is actually present (prevents 1-Wire from always winning by default).
  • inferDecoderDefaults now recognizes CAN and 1-Wire channel labels and prefers UART when a TX label is present.
  • When a UART-labeled channel decodes as valid Modbus RTU frames, autoDetectLaProtocol now returns modbus.
  • Real SWD and Modbus RTU sigrok-dumps fixtures are now auto-detected correctly.
  • Added regression tests for auto-detect on both fixtures.

• 2026-07-03 — fix/la-bugs-and-docs merged to main (rc15)

  • Fixed UART even/odd parity bug, Modbus short-frame noise, and JTAG shift overflow.
  • Updated README and CHANGELOG.

• 2026-07-03 — feat/la-protocols merged to main

  • SWD, JTAG, and Modbus/RS-485 decoders + UI integration + auto-detect.
  • CAN and 1-Wire decoders also integrated.
  • Real sigrok-dumps fixtures for SWD, JTAG, and Modbus RTU.

🔧 Immediate next work

#	Issue	Status	Summary
#4	LA Time Machine: persistent indexed history buffer for large captures	open	Indexed, scrubbable history for 20M+ sample captures.
#6	Add more real sigrok-dumps fixtures for SWD, JTAG, and Modbus RTU	open	Broader fixture coverage (e.g., even-parity Modbus, multi-transaction SWD).
#7	Doc: LA sigrok fixture verification guide	open	Step-by-step guide for contributors adding new fixtures.

🗺️ Long-term architectural roadmap

#	Issue	Status	Summary
#8	Unified Hardware Canvas: extend laDecoders for both read and write	open	Add encode/write functions alongside decode/read.
#9	Visual Programmer: overlay JTAG/SWD programming frames on the LA canvas	open	Real-time visual feedback during chip programming.
#10	Sequence Builder: visual macro editor for multi-step protocol sequences	open	Build reusable Reset → Poll → Write → Verify sequences.
#11	Integrated Debugger/Programmer module for chip-specific memory maps	open	STM32 flash, FPGA bitstream, etc., all local-only.
#12	Telemetry Plugin: bridge marine/desalination sensors into the Forge canvas	open	Visualize salinity, pressure, flow alongside electrical traces.

How to use this roadmap

• Want to pick up a task? Comment on the linked issue so we don’t duplicate effort.
• Want to propose a new idea? Open a new discussion in the Ideas category and we’ll add it here if it fits the roadmap.
• Looking for the local plan file? See .devin/plans/la-roadmap-time-machine-and-beyond.md in the repo (gitignored, local-only scratchpad).

This post is edited after every major merge as part of the project maintenance workflow.

[vailuc]

📦 LA canvas packet overlays + ticket strip — now in main (rc24)

Just merged the feat/la-canvas-packet-overlays work stream:

• Canvas packet overlays — decoded UART, I2C, SPI, CAN, 1-Wire, SWD, JTAG, and Modbus frames are rendered directly on the waveform. Errors (NACK, parity, CRC) are highlighted in red. Hover for details, click to center the viewport on the packet.
• Bottom ticket strip — the old decoder text terminal is replaced by a horizontal strip of pills. Each pill is a decoded event positioned in time; click it to jump to that event.
• Clock-aware pill widths — pills use the measured bit period (SCL, SCK, UART/CAN bit samples) so they stay readable when zoomed in, instead of collapsing to a sliver.
• SPI pills show MOSI + MISO — both values are labeled in the same pill (e.g., M0xA5 S0x12).
• Pattern auto-zoom — the synthetic test capture now opens zoomed to the active data region instead of a full 1-second sliver.

Verification: npx tsc --noEmit, npx vitest run (130 passed), and npm run build all clean.

Next up on the LA roadmap: #4 Time Machine buffer, #6 more sigrok fixtures, #7 fixture verification guide.

[vailuc]

📦 LA Time Machine buffer — now in main (rc25)

Just merged the feat/la-time-machine work stream:

• Chunked persistent history buffer — captures are split into 1M-sample chunks and persisted in IndexedDB, so multi-million-sample captures no longer need to live entirely in memory.
• Async windowing — only the visible viewport is loaded from storage, with an LRU hot-cache for fast pan/zoom.
• Streaming ingest — long captures can be appended chunk-by-chunk via createCapture / appendChunk / finalizeCapture instead of one huge allocation.
• RLE compression — sample chunks are run-length encoded (with raw fallback) to reduce storage size for idle regions.
• Decoder window limit — decoders only run on windows up to 1M samples, preventing UI stalls when zoomed out.
• Import/pattern stability — old captures are explicitly deleted from IndexedDB and in-memory refs are cleared before loading new data, fixing the OOM stalls and stale-UI reverts seen when rapidly switching imports or generating the Pattern test capture.

Verification: npx tsc --noEmit, npx vitest run (139 passed), and npm run build all clean.

Next up on the LA roadmap: #4 Time Machine buffer (foundation done; remaining: 20M-sample validation + frame indexing), #6 more sigrok fixtures, #7 fixture verification guide.

[vailuc]

📋 Progress update — 2026-07-08 (rc28)

Two PRs merged to main today:

PR #15 — Three-stage LUT protocol auto-detection

• Edge-list computation (computeEdgeList): extracts rising/falling transitions per channel — O(samples) single pass
• Signal classification (classifySignal): builds SignalProfile with per-channel ChannelProfile (clock detection via trimmed CV, idle state, symbol time, transition count) and SignalSignature detection (UART start, CAN SOF, I2C start/stop, 1-Wire reset, LIN break, SWD reset)
• Property scoring (scoreProtocolProperties): scores all 10 protocols against PROTOCOL_LUT using signatures, integer-multiple clock relationships, and channel linking — returns sorted ScoredCandidate[]
• Targeted decode: only top 3 candidates are fully decoded, with brute-force fallback for edge cases
• Canvas improvement: flat-region ··· indicator draws ellipsis when consecutive same-value pixels exceed 50px
• 201 tests passing

PR #17 — IncrementalClassifier (live multi-protocol detection)

• Stateful, append-only classifier that grows edge lists across chunks without recomputing from scratch
• Per-channel-group hypotheses via union-find clustering — detects UART on D0 + I2C on D1/D2 simultaneously
• Confidence % = propertyScore/maxScore × edgeMaturity, stable at >70%
• Auto channel labels: SCL/SDA, MOSI/MISO/SCK, SWCLK/SWDIO, TCK/TMS/TDI/TDO, UART TX, CAN, 1-Wire, RS485, LIN — all with confidence %
• Live wiring: each onData chunk feeds the classifier; toolbar shows UART 85% | I2C 72%; channel labels auto-update at >30% confidence; decoder refreshes when protocol changes and is stable
• Bug fix: union-find find() infinite loop (path compression didn't terminate)
• 13 new unit tests, 201 total passing

What's next

• Multi-protocol AutoDetectResult[] for static (non-live) detection — currently autoDetectLaProtocol returns single result; IncrementalClassifier already supports multiple live
• More sigrok fixtures (Add more real sigrok-dumps fixtures for SWD, JTAG, and Modbus RTU #6)
• LA sigrok fixture verification guide (Doc: LA sigrok fixture verification guide #7)