Roadmap

Caution

Lucent is experimental. Its APIs change without a migration path, and it hasn't been tested on physical devices. Don't ship it in a production app yet.

Foundations

A module runs as C++ in a bare React Native app and an Expo app, on iOS and Android.

Status	Item
done	A C++ runtime with JavaScript's numbers, strings, arrays, maps, sets and errors.
done	One C++ TurboModule, autolinked on iOS and Android.
done	The compiler: the TypeScript checker, then C++ with #line back to the source.
done	lucent build, the Metro integration and the Expo config plugin.
done	Every language feature tested against the same code run as JavaScript.

The language

Self-contained modules, such as parsers, codecs and data structures.

Status	Item
done	Statements, expressions, destructuring and template literals.
done	Object types, unions, narrowing, enums and generics.
done	Classes with inheritance and interfaces, closures, generators, regular expressions and JSON.
done	async and await off the JS thread, AbortSignal, JS callbacks and promises.
done	bigint, with values of any size crossing to JavaScript exactly.
done	using declarations and Symbol.dispose.
done	Lucent code runs one piece at a time, so it has no data races.
done	Heavy work on worker threads with compute, checked so a task shares no state.
done	NativeBuffer, which hands bytes to tasks and JavaScript without copying them.

Platform APIs

Call the iOS and Android SDKs directly from Lucent.

Status	Item
done	SDK types read from your Xcode and Android SDK on first import, then cached.
done	One module for both platforms, with platform branches; platform files as an option.
done	Delegates, listeners and blocks; completion handlers as promises.
done	Swift-only APIs, such as StoreKit 2 and CryptoKit, through generated Swift.
done	Kotlin-only APIs, such as suspend functions and Flow, through generated Kotlin.
done	Native 64-bit integers as bigint, so IDs and sizes stay exact.
done	Callback APIs as promises and subscriptions, with fromCallback and subscribe.
done	Members of generic classes on both platforms, such as List<E>.get.
done	Classes extended in Lucent on both platforms, such as a UIViewController.
done	OS version checks and main-thread-only APIs, checked at compile time on both platforms.
done	The current Activity and iOS scene, activity results and permission requests.
done	Libraries the app links: its pods on iOS, its Gradle dependencies on Android.
done	Lucent packages on npm, with lucent.json for their native needs.
done	Typed native extensions: C code a package ships, checked against its header.
done	A coverage report of what each SDK binds, and why the rest is skipped.
done	Pinning the SDKs a project uses, and listing what an SDK update changes for your code.
done	Ports of Expo and community modules, checked against the originals.
in progress	Native libraries nobody has seen before, bound and run with no change to Lucent.
later	Weak references.
later	Binding the APIs of Swift Package Manager libraries.

Views

Native views from Lucent components, rendered by React Native's Fabric.

Status	Item
done	Components in .lucent.tsx that render UIKit and Android views, behind an internal switch.
done	SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose bodies written as JSX, from declarations read from your SDKs.
done	One file per component, with each platform's body in a platform branch.
done	Events, commands, requests that answer, recycling, sizing to content and React children.
done	Views that keep updating while JavaScript is blocked.
in progress	JSX for any SDK view, keyed lists and Yoga layout.
next	A views preview with wrapper ports, such as maps, web views and video.
later	Native lists, gestures and animations, and media pipelines.

Production

Ready for apps in production.

Status	Item
done	@lucent-lang/lucent on npm, published from CI with provenance.
done	Incremental builds, and rebuilds as you edit, including linked packages.
done	Crashes and errors that point at .lucent.ts lines.
done	Lucent's errors in the editor.
done	A warning when the installed app runs an older native build than your code.
done	A JavaScript lucent:core, so Jest and Vitest can run shared modules.
in progress	Performance budgets in CI.
next	Testing on physical devices; today, simulators and emulators.
later	Background tasks, services and app extensions with no live JavaScript.
later	A tested support window of React Native and Expo versions.
later	Pilots with independent library authors and real apps.

This page is generated from ROADMAP.md in the repository.