The Method & Map · F

The 9-Track Roadmap

Locking the foundation makes the nine tracks fall out cleanly. Each becomes an epic in the three-way tracker (beads ↔ GitHub ↔ the project tracker). Each maps to the pillars.

Track	Epic	Delivers	Status
E1	Dedicated home (own iron)	P5 — servers, ingress, relational + cache + media stores, backups/DR, observability, deploy.	ADR-002 ✓
E2	Learning core	P3 (courses) — cert-prep, self + external video, assessments, certs, cohorts, upstream PRs.	ADR-008 ✓ (seams)
E3	Identity, SSO & Security	P1 — audit login/security first, then one-identity IdP, social login, RBAC, tier, threat model.	ADR-003 ✓
E4	Community & social	P3 (community) — global boards/spaces, directory, feeds, events, notifications.	ADR-001 ✓
E5	Messaging & real-time	P3 (messaging) + P5 — DMs/group chat, presence, agents over conversation history.	ADR-001 ✓
E6	AI & agentic layer	P4 — tutor, authoring, permissioned index, governed agents, conversational data layer.	ADR-004 ✓
E7	Video & content	P3 (media) — self-hosted video, external embeds, media pipeline, podcasts.	ADR-005 ✓
E8	Premium vetted community	P1 (tier) + admission — membership/vetting, premium tiers + payments, grandfather the 60.	ADR-006 ✓
E9	Governance, tracking & build	cross-cutting — three-way tracking, ADRs, research/design outputs, the Fable build pipeline.	ADR-007 ✓

All 9 tracks worked. Every track now has a full ADR from the adversarial 5-lens panel — see the ADR index. Nine blind panels converged on one doctrine (own the record + permission authority · rent the commodity · defer the sophistication). Build order stays foundation-first: identity → shell → content model → AI → messaging → tiers+payments → polish.

Build order (foundation-first)

1. IdP + identity spine → 2. Shell + design system → 3. Content model 4. AI service → 5. Messaging / realtime → 6. Tiers + payments → 7. Polish Learning core stands up early in parallel and is FEDERATED into step 1, not rebuilt. Build happens later, on Fable credits. Plan now; build later.

Where the tiers & payments of E8 get priced is a market question, not just an engineering one — see the Competitive Landscape: the membership-network band (≈ $4.4k–$60k/yr) that E8 competes in, and the platform players E2's learning core is measured against.

← Estate Map · index · Competitive Landscape · next: the ADRs →