10 — Implementation Plan

From the Burrow™ specification set.

10 — Implementation Plan

Guiding Rule

Do not implement filesystem mutation until read-only discovery has been exercised against the owner's real storage and the results have been reviewed.

Milestone 0 — Repository Foundation

Deliver:

  • monorepo/repository structure;
  • Swift engine project;
  • Next.js UI;
  • shared API contract approach;
  • SQLite migration framework;
  • test fixture generator;
  • CI/lint/type/test baseline.

Gate:

  • applications start locally;
  • UI can query engine health;
  • no filesystem mutation APIs exist.

Milestone 1 — Volume & Provider Discovery

Deliver:

  • mounted volume discovery;
  • stable volume IDs;
  • iCloud root detection;
  • OneDrive root/account detection;
  • external drive detection;
  • storage-root configuration UI.

Gate:

  • owner can see correct local/cloud/external locations;
  • no scans outside approved roots.

Milestone 2 — Inventory Scanner

Deliver:

  • recursive traversal;
  • exclusions;
  • metadata capture;
  • progress/cancellation;
  • per-item/root errors;
  • SQLite persistence;
  • incremental rescan foundation.

Gate:

  • representative fixture and real read-only scans complete;
  • no mutation detected.

Milestone 3 — Storage Analytics

Deliver:

  • capacity/utilization views;
  • largest files/folders;
  • age filters;
  • file-type summaries;
  • cloud/local allocation distinctions;
  • scan coverage/staleness indicators.

Gate:

  • dashboard numbers reconcile to test fixtures and reasonable filesystem checks.

Milestone 4 — Hashing & Duplicates

Deliver:

  • size grouping;
  • partial signatures;
  • full BLAKE3;
  • hash cache;
  • duplicate groups;
  • cross-storage duplicate analysis.

Gate:

  • false exact-duplicate rate is zero in test corpus;
  • same-name/different-content fixtures are handled correctly.

Milestone 5 — Recommendation Layer

Deliver read-only recommendations:

  • exact duplicates;
  • large/stale files;
  • archive candidates;
  • downloads/installers;
  • cloud-local-storage observations.

Gate:

  • every recommendation exposes deterministic reason/evidence;
  • no recommendation triggers an action.

Release v0.1 Review (VLT-38)

Mandatory human approval gate. Automated acceptance criteria do not authorize agents to approve this gate.

Run a controlled read-only validation against the owner's Mac internal storage, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, and a portable SSD. For each expected provider/location record VALIDATED, NOT_PRESENT, NOT_CONFIGURED, INACCESSIBLE, or FAILED. Missing or unconfigured iCloud/OneDrive is not a silent pass.

Owner review of those results is required before Release 0.2 hashing and duplicate analysis starts.

Release v0.2 Review

Mandatory human safety gate at the end of Duplicate Analysis. It must occur before Release 0.3 Backup enables Safety Level 1 or any production file-copy capability.

Review:

  • inventory accuracy;
  • duplicate-analysis accuracy;
  • cloud-provider behavior;
  • scanner performance;
  • hashing performance;
  • observed storage configuration;
  • safety-test results;
  • proposed backup topology;
  • proposed portable-drive usage.

Releases 0.3–1.0 remain progressive placeholders until both human gates are approved.

Milestone 6 — Backup

Only after approval:

  • Safety Level 1;
  • backup jobs;
  • portable drive target validation;
  • dry run;
  • incremental copy;
  • hash verification;
  • health dashboard.

Milestone 7 — Archive

  • archive plan;
  • copy + verify;
  • manifest;
  • restore lookup;
  • source cleanup remains separate.

Milestone 8 — Managed Cleanup

Only after explicit design approval:

  • Safety Level 2;
  • review queue;
  • Trash integration;
  • cloud warnings;
  • duplicate cleanup;
  • audit history.

Milestone 9 — Policy & Scheduling

  • scheduled backups;
  • stale-backup notifications;
  • explicit cleanup policies;
  • no autonomous permanent deletion.

Definition of Done — Every Work Item

  • acceptance criteria met;
  • tests added/updated;
  • safety constraints maintained;
  • lint/type/build checks pass;
  • error handling included;
  • documentation updated;
  • no unrelated scope expansion.