# Steid

The source of truth for everything in a developer's or organization's portfolio.

## Vision

Steid is a developer/org identity and portfolio platform. It's where you host your
code, your writing, your projects — everything you do, in one place, under your
control.

Git repos are a core feature, not the whole product. Blogs, documentation, project
showcases, and anything else a dev or org wants to present lives here too.

Personal-first, but organizations can collaborate on it.

**What makes it different from Gitea/Forgejo:** those are GitHub clones scaled down.
Steid is portfolio-first — the profile page is the product, and repos are one kind of
thing that appears on it. That framing should win any tie-break.

## Core Principles

- **Fast** — Rust, minimal overhead
- **Reliable** — correct first, then optimize
- **Personal-first** — great for a single dev, scales to orgs
- **Identity-centric** — everything is built around who you are (user/org); auth is
  designed in from day one, not bolted on

## Stack

Starting intent, not settled decisions. Each one gets a record in
[decisions/](decisions/) when it's actually made and confirmed in this build.

| Concern | Choice | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| Web framework | Topcoat (tokio-rs) | — |
| Git transport | smart HTTP via `git http-backend` | [0001](decisions/0001-git-over-http-not-ssh.md) |
| Git auth | personal access tokens over HTTP Basic | [0001](decisions/0001-git-over-http-not-ssh.md) |
| Crate layout | single crate | — |
| Ownership | personal org owns repos | — |
| Database | SQLite via sqlx | — |

Architecture and conventions: [architecture.md](architecture.md).

## Milestone Ladder

A from-scratch rebuild on Topcoat. Much of this was built and verified end-to-end in a
previous attempt — see [progress.md](progress.md). Treat that code as reference, not as
a baseline.

| # | Milestone | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | **Skeleton** — Topcoat app boots, config, one page, SQLite wired | done |
| 1 | **Identity, thin** — owner from config, login, session | active |
| 2 | **Profile page** — `/{owner}` as the real home page | not started |
| 3 | **Writing** — posts, markdown | not started |
| 4 | **Repo model** — records + bare repos on disk | not started |
| 5 | **Git over HTTP** — `git http-backend`, PATs for auth | not started |
| 6 | **Repo browsing** — tree, blob, commit log | not started |
| 7 | **Identity, full** — multi-user, orgs, invites, registration policy | not started |
| 8+ | Projects/showcases · issues & PRs · SSH transport · federation | not started |

`/api` is not a milestone. It's a standing practice: every milestone that adds a use
case exposes it under `/api` where that makes sense. An API isn't a feature, it's a
second surface on work already being done — and having a third consumer keeps the use
case layer honest.

### Why this order

The vision calls Steid portfolio-first, but every previous ladder put portfolio behind
four milestones of git plumbing. Across two attempts and ~6,000 lines, Steid has
shipped identity, repo records, clone, push, and key auth — and not one portfolio
feature. Attempt #2 ended with all the git infrastructure working and nothing that
distinguishes it from Gitea.

So the differentiator ships early (2–3), and git — which is well-understood and has a
working reference implementation — comes after. Full multi-user identity is deferred
to 7, because personal-first means one user, and there's nothing to collaborate on
until there's something worth collaborating on.

**Open:** milestone 3 is written as *writing/posts*, but *projects & showcases* is the
other candidate for the first portfolio feature. Unresolved.

**One numbering scheme.** The previous attempt kept two (a roadmap ladder and a
separate build log with conflicting numbers) and they drifted apart within three
milestones. If the plan changes, edit this table — don't start a second list.

The active milestone is broken into steps in [current.md](current.md).