mlx-bun 0.5.0 → 1.0.0

package/docs/planning/PRODUCT_ROADMAP.md

@@ -1,593 +0,0 @@
-# PRODUCT ROADMAP
-
-Working notes for the product shape of mlx-bun. This is intentionally
-less settled than PLAN.md: PLAN is the engineering contract; this file is
-the evolving UI/UX/DX north star.
-
-## Product north star
-
-Josh's guiding principle for the entire project is "The absolute BEST local
-AI experience on a mac". This governs installation, application development,
-everyday use and inference performance.
-
-Offer multiple simple installation methods without asking users to manage
-a Python virtual environment. Let developers import local AI into their
-applications without managing a separate inference sidecar. Make JavaScript
-and TypeScript first-class ways to build with local AI, without requiring
-Python. Make more capable models practical on the same Mac and reduce the
-time users wait for successful results.
-
-Every workstream must serve that experience. Evaluate engineering choices
-by the setup, integration and operating burden they remove, as well as the
-quality, reliability, speed and hardware efficiency they deliver. Research
-and publication can support the project; user benefit determines priority.
-
-Make the answer to "what is the best way to use local AI on my Mac?"
-boringly simple:
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun
-```
-
-The user should not need to research Hugging Face variants, quantization
-formats, context windows, Python environments, server commands, or agent
-provider config before they can try local AI. They should install one
-binary, run one command, wait for one resumable model download, and get a
-working local chat UI plus a local AI server.
-
-The intended first-run shape is product, not demo: start with the tiny
-welcoming model quickly, begin the stronger recommended model download in the
-background, and graduate the user into the best default profile for their
-actual Mac without requiring them to learn the model zoo first.
-
-The runtime can still expose every advanced knob. The default path should
-not require them.
-
-## Four product faces
-
-The same runtime has to support four related but distinct jobs:
-
-1. **Local AI product** — the one-command experience for someone who just wants
-   useful local AI. This path should be opinionated, benchmarked, and boringly
-   reliable.
-2. **Library for app developers** — the embeddable TypeScript/MLX layer for
-   Bun, Tauri, Electron, and desktop tools that want local inference without a
-   Python sidecar.
-3. **AI lab for researchers** — the place where parity, evals, kernels,
-   compiled graphs, ORPO, LoRA adapters, and model experiments can happen in
-   the same stack that serves the result.
-4. **Autonomous background agent runtime** — the always-available local server
-   for scripts, recurring tasks, personal tools, and per-request adapter
-   routing.
-
-These are not separate products. They are one runtime with progressive
-disclosure: appliance defaults at the front, sharp instruments underneath.
-
-## The three modes (the organizing design law)
-
-mlx-bun is published. Existing commands, flags, and package exports are
-compatibility commitments; changes need documented migration behavior.
-Where an mlx-lm flag has matching semantics, prefer its established name.
-The CLI serves three audiences through one set of verbs, with more explicit
-configuration available as users need it:
-
-1. **Automatic mode** — first-time local-AI users. `mlx-bun` (and bare
-   verbs) with zero flags. Smart, sane defaults from the device-profile
-   table (see Core idea). Typing to a chatbot in a web UI in under a
-   minute, with no knowledge of HF variants, quant formats, or context
-   windows required.
-2. **Compat mode** — people moving over from mlx-lm. The same verbs,
-   plus dotted aliases (`mlx-bun.server` *is* `mlx-bun serve`), using
-   mlx-lm's flag vocabulary, so existing muscle memory and scripts port
-   with a one-token rename. mlx-lm is canonical because it is the
-   default Apple references at WWDC and outweighs the alternative by
-   ~425× monthly installs (1.64M vs 3.85k; mlx-lm 5.8k stars / 765
-   forks; mlx-optiq has no public repo — measured 2026-06-12).
-3. **Stick-shift mode** — power users and researchers. The full knob
-   surface: every mlx-lm flag, every optiq feature, plus our own
-   envelope-pushing ones, all exposed and composable. Build the exact
-   system you want.
-
-### Laws that keep the three modes coherent
-
-- **One surface, mlx-lm vocabulary.** The dotted form is a pure alias
-  of the space form. Adopt mlx-lm's flag names wherever they are the
-  standard; only name a flag ourselves where mlx-lm has no concept for
-  it (and there we are free to improve on optiq's name, not bound to
-  it).
-- **Compatibility = superset, never intersection.** Every documented
-  mlx-lm flag/verb behaves faithfully so scripts drop in unchanged. We
-  never subtract or gate a capability we already have for free to
-  resemble an upstream — e.g. we serve OpenAI + Anthropic + Responses
-  from one server, and that stays on: it costs nothing and is invisible
-  to a beginner.
-- **Gate only on conflict.** A capability is always on UNLESS leaving
-  it on would degrade the automatic or compat experience (it changes
-  output determinism, trades quality, or surprises a script). Only then
-  does it move behind a stick-shift flag. This is rule 3 yielding to
-  rules 1 and 2.
-- **optiq is a feature set to absorb, not a flag dialect to honor.**
-  Its distinctive features (sensitivity mixed-precision convert,
-  per-layer KV sensitivity profiling, LoRA rank scaling, dual-protocol
-  serving, latency prediction, the Lab UI) graft onto the mlx-lm spine
-  as additive flags and a few new verbs.
-
-### Status (2026-06-12; compat surface design remains open as of 2026-06-17)
-
-The compat layer does not exist yet: today's commands (`serve`, `fit`,
-`benchmark`, `evals`, `get`/`scan`/`ls`, `pi`, `harness`) are ad-hoc,
-not a designed mlx-lm-matching surface — though their flags already
-overlap mlx-lm/optiq heavily, so this is mostly rename-and-confirm, not
-migration. The work: design the full surface against mlx-lm vocabulary,
-reconcile the existing commands into it, and fill the capability matrix
-behind it (convert/quantize, LoRA training, eval/perplexity, fuse,
-cache_prompt, upload/share). Decomposed into phases in PLAN.md.
-
-## Core idea: finite matrix runtime
-
-The local-AI problem is not continuous for Mac users. MLX means Apple Silicon,
-and Apple ships a finite set of real chip/RAM/bandwidth combinations. The
-supported model universe is also curated. For each physical device profile and
-model snapshot, we can research and preselect the best known model artifact,
-context target, KV mode, memory budget, kernel route, graph route, and runtime
-flags.
-
-That means first-run behavior can be a measured lookup table, not a wizard or
-an exploratory benchmark:
-
-```text
-detect exact Mac profile
-fingerprint the model snapshot
-choose the task mode: chat, vision, tool loop, adapter, training, eval
-look up the measured execution plan
-download/resume the exact model artifact
-start the tuned local server
-open the built-in UI
-show how to connect external tools and harnesses
-```
-
-The current `fit` endpoint is the nucleus of this idea: it already reasons over
-real Apple Silicon profiles, model bytes, KV bytes, context, and predicted
-decode. The product version should evolve from "does this fit?" into:
-
-```text
-device profile + model checksum + task mode + live memory pressure
-  -> recommended execution plan
-```
-
-Execution plans can eventually include specialized graph variants, fused kernel
-routes, prompt-cache policy, adapter policy, safe context limits, expected
-decode/TTFT, and user-facing rationale. The research work feeds the table. The
-table feeds the user.
-
-## Recommended profiles
-
-Initial profile work should stay narrow and excellent. Start with the
-Gemma 4 OptiQ family and expand only when the project has a better answer.
-
-Candidate shape:
-
-| Device profile | Default model | Intent |
-|---|---|---|
-| MacBook Air / 16 GB | `mlx-community/gemma-4-e4b-it-OptiQ-4bit` | Fast first local-AI experience. |
-| MacBook Pro / 24-32 GB | `mlx-community/gemma-4-12B-it-OptiQ-4bit` | Strong default chat/agent model. |
-| Mac Studio / 64 GB | `mlx-community/gemma-4-26B-A4B-it-OptiQ-4bit` | Larger local-agent profile. |
-
-Exact model choices, context lengths, and flags are not frozen here. They
-should be updated from benchmarks, evals, fit predictions, and real use.
-
-Each profile should eventually carry:
-
-```ts
-{
-  id: "macbook-pro-24gb",
-  model: "mlx-community/gemma-4-12B-it-OptiQ-4bit",
-  context: 65536,
-  kv: "mixed",
-  memoryBudgetBytes: "...",
-  compiledDecode: true,
-  expectedDecodeTps: 30,
-  expectedTtftMs: 100,
-  label: "Recommended for this Mac",
-}
-```
-
-The important rule: an optimization matters for product defaults when it
-changes a device-tier decision, unlocks a larger useful context window,
-keeps decode above a user-visible threshold, improves quality at the same
-budget, or prevents failure. Saving memory for its own sake is secondary.
-
-## Specialization strategy
-
-For the curated product path, it is acceptable to trade more work up front for a
-better hot path later. The Mac is known, the model snapshot is known, and the
-task mode is known. That lets us precompute or cache exact plans instead of
-shipping every decision to runtime.
-
-Candidate plan fields:
-
-- Model checksum and architecture fingerprint.
-- Apple Silicon profile: chip, unified memory, bandwidth tier, GPU/CPU shape.
-- Context buckets and fixed-shape cache layouts.
-- Kernel choices: MLX built-ins, MLX fast paths, custom Metal kernels, or
-  eager fallback.
-- Graph choices: eager, compiled exact-shape graph, compiled bucketed graph,
-  or prebuilt graph table.
-- Adapter choices: none, single LoRA, stacked LoRA, task-routed LoRA.
-- Measured results: TTFT, decode tok/s, peak memory, failure envelope.
-
-This is where loop unrolling, branch deletion, static DAG extraction, fused
-kernels, and shape-specialized compiled graphs become product features rather
-than abstract optimizations. They matter when they let the default profile be
-faster, larger, more stable, or better aligned without asking the user to tune
-anything.
-
-## First-run UX
-
-The no-args command should be the friendly path:
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun
-```
-
-Likely behavior:
-
-1. Detect the hardware profile. *(not yet: `recommendedRepoId()` at `src/fit.ts:86` returns `DEFAULT_REPO_ID` unconditionally — device-profile lookup table is unimplemented)*
-2. Pick the recommended runtime profile. *(same caveat as above)*
-3. Show the selected model and why it was chosen. *(not yet: model is printed, rationale is not)*
-4. Start or resume the background download. **Shipped** — auto-download on first run; resumable.
-5. Start the local server when ready. **Shipped.**
-6. Open or serve the built-in chat UI. **Shipped** — browser tab opened automatically; URL printed either way; `--no-open` skips the tab.
-7. Show connection details for OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible clients. **Shipped** — printed at startup.
-8. Offer harness setup actions for Pi, Hermes, OpenClaw, and others. *Partially shipped: `mlx-bun harness pi` configures an existing Pi install; Hermes and OpenClaw adapters do not exist.*
-
-This should feel like an appliance, not a framework tutorial.
-
-## Adapter catalog vision
-
-The average user should not have to train adapters to benefit from them. The
-product path can ship or offer a curated catalog of lightweight LoRA adapters:
-assistant, coding, writing, research, planning, personal-ops, and other
-well-scoped modes. A user can install one small adapter and get a better local
-assistant without changing the base model.
-
-Advanced users can still train their own adapters with mlx-bun. The broader
-product loop is:
-
-```text
-curate conversations and task data
-train / ORPO task adapters
-publish small adapter artifacts
-route requests through the right adapter per task
-keep the base model resident
-```
-
-This makes ORPO performance directly product-relevant. If training is cheap and
-repeatable enough, the project can keep improving small local models through
-adapter updates instead of asking every user to download a larger base model.
-
-## Built-in UI
-
-Bun can serve the UI directly from the same executable. The default UI
-does not need to be elaborate at first, but it should work immediately.
-
-Expected surfaces:
-
-- Chat UI backed by the local model server.
-- Download progress, resume status, and model readiness.
-- Current device profile and selected model.
-- Server URL and API compatibility hints.
-- Simple controls for common settings: context, temperature, max tokens.
-- Advanced panel for explicit model/profile overrides.
-- Integration panel for harnesses and external clients.
-
-### Model hot-swap from the UI (candidate)
-
-Let the user switch the served model at runtime — e.g. Gemma e4b →
-MiniCPM5 — from a picker in the web UI, without restarting the server.
-Weight load is cheap (mmap is lazy, load runs on the CPU stream; ~0.5 s
-for a small model), so a swap can feel like changing a setting rather
-than a relaunch. `/library` already enumerates every model on disk with
-a per-machine fit assessment and flags the active one (`serving`), so the
-menu and the "does it fit" data already exist — the missing pieces are a
-swap action and a mutable served context.
-
-Sketch:
-- Today the server is single-model-per-process: `serve()` captures one
-  `ServerContext` as a const in the `Bun.serve` closure. Hot-swap needs a
-  mutable "current context" ref that all handlers and the generation
-  gateway read through.
-- A swap endpoint (e.g. `POST /library/activate`) drains in-flight
-  generations, frees the old model's GPU buffers + KV/prompt caches,
-  `loadContext()`s the target, rebuilds the gateway, then atomically
-  swaps the ref. `/v1/models`, `/status`, and the Pi probe report the new
-  id afterward.
-
-Constraints to honor:
-- On a memory-bound Mac you can't hold two models at once — unload before
-  load. There is an unavoidable brief "swapping…" gap, not an instant
-  switch. Validate fit() before unloading the current model.
-- Load time scales with model size; don't promise instant for large ones.
-- Decide adapter behavior on swap (dropped vs. model-scoped) and surface
-  it. Active LoRA adapters are tied to the base model.
-
-The UI should not hide that this is local. It should make "local" feel
-easy: predictable memory, transparent downloads, offline-capable serving,
-and clear integration instructions.
-
-### SigLIP vision sidecar — image input for gemma e4b (shipped, 2026-06-17)
-
-The Gemma 4 e4b vision encoder (`src/vision/siglip.ts`) is a faithful port
-of the optiq SigLIP tower. It auto-loads on first image input and falls back
-to text-only mode when no image is present, so the chat UI gains image support
-with no startup cost. Features are within ~1% rel-RMSE of the optiq oracle;
-every MLX primitive (rms_norm, gelu, matmul, SDPA, RoPE, pooling) is bit-exact.
-The residual is sub-bf16 floating-point accumulation across the deep encoder,
-not a porting gap. The L1 and L2 paths both work; vision falls back to the
-monolith path on L1 and L2.
-
-### Adapter web selector and CLI /v1/adapters (shipped)
-
-Trained LoRA adapters can be selected from the chat UI via a per-conversation
-picker (`#chat-adapter` in `src/web/app.html`). The picker lists adapters
-discovered by `GET /v1/adapters/available`, mounts the chosen one via
-`POST /v1/adapters`, and sends a `set_adapter` message to Pi-web so that
-every subsequent turn is routed through the right adapter — including the
-`before_provider_request` hook in `src/pi-web.ts`. Adapters are base-model-scoped
-and dropped on model swap.
-
-### The UI must never lag while the AI is busy (candidate, 2026-06-16)
-
-A product guarantee: **the AI may crash, the UI never may** — and the UI
-must stay responsive no matter how hard the model is working. Waiting for
-a *chat reply* is fine and expected (local inference takes time). A laggy
-web UI — slow refreshes, stalled `/status`, a frozen page while an agentic
-pipeline hammers the GPU — is not.
-
-One `mlx-bun` process plays three roles on one event-loop thread: it
-serves the UI, serves the API, and runs the AI. The AI work is synchronous
-blocking GPU/FFI (each `mlx_eval` is atomic and uninterruptible), so it
-starves the loop — worst in the non-streaming path and during prefill,
-where nothing hands a macrotask back. Yielding between tokens helps the
-common case but cannot isolate the UI under sustained load.
-
-Direction (decided: **subprocess**, not worker thread — only address-space
-isolation survives the uncatchable GPU OOM): move the inference runtime
-into its own persistent child process behind the existing
-`GenerationGateway` seam. The main process becomes a pure reactor (UI +
-API + routing, zero MLX calls); one GPU lease serializes all GPU consumers
-(chat, API, quantize, finetune) — reusing the spawn/lease pattern jobs
-already prove. Converges with model hot-swap (model lives off the main
-thread either way). Full design + phasing: `docs/reference/server-config.md`.
-
-## Harness UX
-
-Harness setup should be executable, not just documented.
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun harness
-mlx-bun harness pi
-mlx-bun harness hermes
-mlx-bun harness openclaw
-```
-
-`mlx-bun harness` should open an interactive picker. Direct subcommands
-should configure a specific harness.
-
-Each harness adapter can:
-
-- Detect whether the harness is installed.
-- Preserve existing user config.
-- Add or update the local mlx-bun provider entry.
-- Point it at the local server.
-- Select the right API protocol.
-- Validate the connection with a tiny request.
-- Show the command to launch the harness.
-
-Pi deserves a first-class path because it can be embedded through its SDK:
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun harness pi
-mlx-bun pi
-```
-
-`mlx-bun harness pi` configures the user's existing Pi install. `mlx-bun
-pi` should start the local mlx-bun runtime and launch Pi itself against
-that runtime. If the Pi TUI is the right surface, use it. If an embedded
-SDK session is the right surface, use that.
-
-Other harnesses should follow the same adapter pattern.
-
-Sketch:
-
-```ts
-interface HarnessAdapter {
-  id: "pi" | "hermes" | "openclaw";
-  label: string;
-  detect(): Promise<Detection>;
-  configure(profile: RuntimeProfile): Promise<ConfigureResult>;
-  validate(profile: RuntimeProfile): Promise<ValidationResult>;
-  launch?(profile: RuntimeProfile): Promise<void>;
-}
-```
-
-## CLI shape
-
-Possible command map:
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun                         # recommended model + server + UI
-mlx-bun serve                   # server only
-mlx-bun ui                      # UI only, connect to local/running server
-mlx-bun repl                    # Bun REPL with a local AI client preloaded
-mlx-bun pi                      # launch embedded Pi against mlx-bun
-mlx-bun harness                 # interactive harness setup
-mlx-bun harness pi              # configure existing Pi
-mlx-bun harness hermes          # configure Hermes
-mlx-bun harness openclaw        # configure OpenClaw
-mlx-bun models                  # installed and recommended models
-mlx-bun fit                     # device/model fit information
-mlx-bun doctor                  # diagnostics
-```
-
-Flags should compose with these modes. The default is opinionated, not
-restrictive.
-
-Examples:
-
-```sh
-mlx-bun --model gemma-4-12b --context 65536
-mlx-bun serve --no-ui --port 8080
-mlx-bun pi --model qwen-profile
-mlx-bun harness pi --base-url http://localhost:8080/v1
-```
-
-## Research loop behind the product
-
-The product table should be backed by the same research discipline as
-PLAN.md:
-
-1. Pick a small set of real target devices.
-2. Pick a small set of candidate model artifacts.
-3. Measure fit, context, decode speed, TTFT, memory, and quality.
-4. Specialize the runtime for winning artifacts.
-5. Promote only defaults that pass clean-machine measurements.
-6. Keep fallback and explicit override paths for research and power users.
-
-The first family is Gemma 4 OptiQ. Qwen is the next obvious family to
-evaluate. The default model should be whichever gives the best experience
-for a device profile and use case, not whichever family arrived first.
-
-## Artifact design
-
-Longer term, mlx-bun may not only choose among existing model artifacts.
-It may create artifacts for exact device/use-case targets.
-
-The useful question is not "can we save 1% RAM?" It is:
-
-```text
-Can this model fit on this device,
-with this context window,
-above this decode-speed floor,
-while preserving enough quality for this use case?
-```
-
-TurboQuant plus sensitivity analysis fits this direction. The quantizer
-can target concrete SKU boundaries and context tiers:
-
-- Make a specific model fit on 16 GB with useful context.
-- Make a 12B-class model hit 64k context on 24-32 GB.
-- Keep decode above 30 tok/s on the recommended profile.
-- Preserve tool/agent behavior under the chosen quantization.
-
-This turns quantization from generic compression into product-driven
-artifact design.
-
-## Runtime specialization
-
-When a user asks to run a specific model, there is no ambiguity in the hot
-path. The artifact, config, tensor shapes, KV config, quantization layout,
-chat template, and architectural quirks are known.
-
-The generic runtime is scaffolding for research, portability, and
-fallback. The served instance can be specialized:
-
-- Generated per-model execution paths.
-- Branches and loops removed where the model shape is fixed.
-- Per-layer quant bits/group sizes baked in.
-- Known cache layouts and attention patterns used directly.
-- Custom kernels generated or selected for exact dispatch sites.
-
-Compatibility paths remain the oracle. Specialized paths are promoted
-only when they are correct, measured, and useful.
-
-## Lucien / memory-system direction (candidate, 2026-06-12)
-
-A second product direction under debate alongside the UI/harness work:
-make mlx-bun the local-model engine for Lucien (the Dreaming memory
-system), in two stages.
-
-1. **Prove the models do real work.** Run Lucien's pipeline tasks
-   (session ingestion, synthesis into articles, recall-grounded chat)
-   against mlx-bun-served models. Measure quality and performance per
-   task — this is a real-workload eval, not a benchmark row, and it
-   feeds the profile table (which model tier can sustain synthesis
-   work? what context does recall actually need?).
-2. **Package it.** If the models hold up: mlx-bun as a Lucien backend
-   option — one executable that creates the memory store, gathers
-   session transcripts, synthesizes them into articles, and serves
-   conversations grounded on those articles. Same appliance principle
-   as the chat default: one binary, one command, a working memory
-   system.
-
-This stresses exactly the things the runtime is good at measuring:
-long-context prefill, sustained batch-ish generation, prompt-cache
-reuse across pipeline stages.
-
-## Non-goals for the default UX
-
-- Do not make the user choose from thousands of Hugging Face variants on
-  first run.
-- Do not benchmark their machine before giving a recommendation.
-- Do not require Python, a venv, or manual server setup.
-- Do not require hand-editing harness config files.
-- Do not expose every research flag before the user has a working local
-  AI experience.
-
-## Open questions
-
-- What exact profile table should ship first? *(The device-profile lookup
-  table is unimplemented — `recommendedRepoId()` returns `DEFAULT_REPO_ID`
-  for every SKU. The profile shape in this doc is the spec; the research
-  work and the fill remain open.)*
-- How should background downloads interact with server startup and UI
-  readiness?
-- How should profile recommendations be versioned as benchmarks improve?
-- When Qwen lands, what evals decide whether it replaces a Gemma default?
-
-### Resolved
-
-- **Should no-args open the UI automatically, print a local URL, or both?**
-  Both: the browser tab is opened automatically on start; the URL is always
-  printed; `--no-open` suppresses the tab without hiding the URL.
-- **Which UI stack should be embedded? / How much of Pi should be bundled?**
-  Resolved by harness-pi + pi-web shipping: the web UI is the bundled
-  `src/web/app.html` chat page talking to Pi via `pi-web.ts`; Pi is
-  configured externally via `mlx-bun harness pi`, or launched embedded via
-  `mlx-bun pi`.
-- **What is the right install path?** All of the above — shipped: npm
-  publish (v0.0.4, `bunx mlx-bun`), Homebrew release pipeline (sign,
-  notarize, `joshuarossi/homebrew-tap`), and GitHub release binary.
-
-## Vision notes (merged from IDEAS.md, 2026-08-23)
-
-### Local in the deeper sense
-
-Two phrases that capture the thesis — especially **mlx-bun × Lucien**:
-
-1. **"A truly local model in a deeper sense."** Not just local *compute*
-   (runs on your Mac, nothing leaves it) — local to *you*: grounded in your
-   own context and memory, not only your hardware.
-2. **"The best model at being yours."** Not the best model in the absolute /
-   benchmark sense — the best at *being yours*. A small local model,
-   fine-tuned and wired to your personal memory, can lose every general
-   benchmark and still win the only one that matters here.
-
-Lucien (the Dreaming) is the synthesized, persistent memory of *you*;
-mlx-bun is the local, private model runtime. Combined: a model that runs
-entirely on your machine **and** is continuously grounded in your own
-accumulated context — local in both senses, and yours in a way no hosted
-frontier model can be.
-
-### Library/app split (idea only — NOT planned, Josh 2026-07-05)
-
-Two pulls: "one executable, everything you want to do with local AI" (the
-product's charm) vs "some people just want a JS ML library — do they need
-the rest?" The runtime-isolation work (2026-07-05) drew the exact boundary
-either future needs: the engine child = the GPU stuff (src/model, src/mlx,
-caches, scheduler, generate); the parent = the app (serve/UI/registry/
-jobs/proxy). If a split ever happens it is a PACKAGING decision, not a
-refactor — e.g. npm subpath exports (mlx-bun/model vs the full CLI bundle)
-so library users import only the core. Library usage is unaffected by
-isolation today (in-process generate(), no server involved). Revisit only
-if Josh decides; both directions stay open from the current structure.