Roadmap v1 — founder-only layer (do NOT circulate)

Companion to caf-die-roadmap-v1.md (the circulate-safe file). Everything here is your private strategy layer: the open decisions, the pre-mortem with the people dynamics, and the Todd-meeting prep.

Decisions still needed (block tickets in the pack)

1. Person-weeks ruling (impl_low/impl_high unit) — blocks ticket 2.3.
2. Vertex demo (book it) — blocks Lane D's NOW column entirely.
3. Troy = DIE owner? ("I think" was the phrasing) — determines who L1 circulates to as sponsor.

Pre-mortem (read before circulating — kept out of the work file because it names dynamics)

• The hub gets claimed de facto. Murray's Neptune graph is "a weekend project away." If a running hub ships before the Fabric spec circulates, the spec becomes commentary. This is why Epic 1 is NOW — and why 1.4 frames Neptune as the AWS adapter rather than a rival.
• Squadron Data urgency compresses everything. James's competitive framing means sponsors may force demo-speed over contract-quality. The SLA-lane vs platform-build tension is the standing risk; the L1 lanes are the argument for holding both.
• Todd/Vincent dynamics. Todd reports directly to Vincent and the PM split is still TBD. If the split lands wrong, "front-end PM" can drift into owning the roadmap surface. Mitigation: circulate L1 jointly with Todd; 3.4 makes him a co-owner of a lane early.
• Sandbox optics. The App Runtime deploy that de-risked Epic 3 lives on your personal sandbox. Before it's shown or cited at work, re-provision on a phData account (ticket 3.1) or frame it explicitly as a spike. Don't let the first sponsor demo of the money artifact carry a personal account URL.
• Falsification condition (unchanged from v0): if L1 circulation gets no substantive response from at least two spoke owners by the comment deadline, OR the vertex demo shows genuine build-time-eval overlap, the seam framing isn't landing — revisit the shape with Troy rather than pushing harder.

Your next three actions (v1 edition)

1. Circulate L1 (just the table + reading rule) to Troy, Murray, Anderson-side, Todd — "this is the shape; comments by Friday." Reversibility note: this spends political capital; once circulated you own the seam thesis publicly. Edit to taste first.
2. Stand up 4.1 first (an afternoon): the bench can't pull anything until Jira speaks ticket-contract. The Todd meeting (below) is a natural forcing function.
3. Hand 2.1 to Murray personally — a gift, not a review. The seam thesis lands better as delivered value than as a slide.

Todd meeting — backlog-intake prep

What the meeting is for: his ideas → the backlog, in a shape the bench can pull. Three things to bring:

1. The L1 table (his orientation: where any idea slots — lane first, column second).
2. The ticket shape (Order · AC · Context pointers · size). If his ideas leave the meeting in this shape, they're loadable; if not, they're notes. The definition-of-ready IS the deterministic lint checklist from 4.1 — writing his first two or three tickets together in the meeting doubles as the 4.1 pilot.
3. His lane, pre-seeded: 3.4 (UI parity groom) is deliberately joint-owned with him. Opening move that respects the dynamics: "Lane C's UI column is yours to co-own — what's missing from it?" gets his backlog ideas INTO the roadmap's shape instead of beside it.

Sorting rule for whatever he brings: UI/front-end polish → Lane C LATER (or NOW if it blocks a sale); anything touching the site's data path → Epic 3 tickets; anything about how work reaches the bench → Epic 4; net-new capability ideas → hold for the Registry/factory lane rather than inventing a sixth lane in the meeting.

Packaging note

The work zip contains ONLY caf-die-roadmap-v1.md. This file stays home (it's in the vault; read it from HQ before the Todd meeting). The v0 pack and the DIE/Fabric map analysis (2026-07-06-die-fabric-hub-spoke-map-and-roadmap-implications.md) also stay home — the map doc carries meeting intel and the wedge framing.