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Rusta Development Roadmap

Version: 0.2.12
Last Updated: November 7, 2025
Status: Production Ready with Request/Response Transformation & Historical Metrics

🔥 Immediate Priorities (Next 2 Weeks)

  1. Historical Metrics API - REST endpoints for time-series data queries
  2. WebSocket Real-time Updates - Replace polling with WebSocket for live metrics
  3. Metrics Charts UI - Time-series visualization with interactive charts
  4. Advanced Route Configuration UI - Multi-backend, load balancing, and retry config forms
  5. Transformation UI - Visual editor for request/response transformations

🤖 AI/LLM Gateway Vision

Innovative Use Cases for AI-Powered API Gateway:

Smart Request Routing

  • Content Analysis: Route /api/translate requests to different translation services based on detected language complexity
  • Load Prediction: Use ML to predict which backend will handle requests most efficiently
  • Failover Intelligence: AI-driven decisions on when and where to route during service degradation

LLM-Enhanced Request Processing

  • Request Transformation: Convert REST to GraphQL automatically based on request intent
  • Response Enrichment: Use LLMs to add context or explanations to API responses
  • Query Optimization: Automatically optimize database queries or API calls using AI insights

Intelligent Rate Limiting & Security

  • Behavioral Analysis: Detect abnormal request patterns and adjust rate limits dynamically
  • Threat Detection: Use AI to identify potential attacks or abuse patterns
  • Personalized Limits: Adjust rate limits based on user behavior and request complexity

Developer Experience AI

  • Auto-Documentation: Generate API documentation from request/response patterns
  • Performance Insights: AI-generated recommendations for API optimization
  • Configuration Assistance: Smart suggestions for gateway configuration based on usage patterns

Implementation Approach:

  • Start with simple ML models for load balancing
  • Integrate with popular LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, local models)
  • Build plugin architecture for custom AI modules
  • Focus on performance - AI decisions should add <5ms latency

Success Metricsent load balancing strategies** - Round-robin, weighted, health-based

  1. Add retry logic with backoff - Configurable retry policies
  2. Request transformation - Header manipulation, path rewriting
  3. Performance optimizations - Connection pooling improvements
  4. Enhanced documentation - Add JWT and rate limiting examplesus**: Development mode

What is this?

This roadmap shows what we're planning to build for Rusta. It's honest about current state and future plans.

Current Reality: We have a production-ready HTTP gateway with JWT auth, rate limiting, circuit breakers, metrics, and a modern web-based admin interface.

Future Vision: A comprehensive API management platform with AI-powered routing capabilities that developers love to use.

Current Status (What Actually Works)

  • ✅ Multi-protocol support - HTTP/HTTPS, WebSocket, FTP, and DNS proxying
  • ✅ Basic HTTP request routing with regex pattern matching
  • ✅ Dynamic path parameters (/users/{id} → /users/123)
  • ✅ JSON configuration with comprehensive validation
  • ✅ JWT Authentication - Bearer token validation with configurable claims
  • ✅ Advanced rate limiting - Per-route limits with multiple algorithms (fixed window, sliding window, token bucket)
  • ✅ Load Balancing - 5 strategies (round-robin, least connections, random, weighted, IP hash)
  • ✅ Retry Logic - Exponential backoff with configurable policies and retryable status codes
  • ✅ Route Management API - CRUD operations via REST endpoints for dynamic route configuration
  • ✅ Hot-Reload API - Manual configuration reload and status endpoints
  • ✅ Request logging with structured output
  • ✅ Security headers - CORS, content security policies, request size limits
  • ✅ Health check endpoints - /health, /ready, /live for Kubernetes
  • ✅ Circuit breaker pattern - Per-backend circuit breakers with fault isolation
  • ✅ Configuration hot-reload - Update routes without service restart
  • ✅ Prometheus metrics - Comprehensive observability with /metrics endpoint
  • ✅ Web Admin UI - Modern Leptos-based interface with real-time dashboard
  • ✅ Route Management UI - Complete CRUD interface for routes with professional design
  • ✅ Workspace Architecture - Modular crates: gateway, ui, cli, client, core
  • ✅ WebSocket proxying - Real-time bidirectional communication support
  • ✅ FTP proxying - File operations through HTTP APIs
  • ✅ DNS proxying - DNS query forwarding with caching
  • ✅ Configuration Management API - 6 REST endpoints for gateway configuration (GET/POST)
  • ✅ Configuration Management UI - Complete interface for JWT, rate limiting, CORS, metrics, server settings
  • ✅ Advanced Metrics Dashboard - 5 specialized views (Overview, Performance, Errors, Traffic, Circuit Breakers)
  • ✅ Metrics Visualization - Response time distribution, error analysis, traffic breakdown, circuit breaker monitoring
  • ✅ Smart Error Recommendations - AI-powered insights based on error patterns and thresholds
  • ✅ Request/Response Transformation - Header manipulation, path rewriting, query parameter transformation (v0.2.12)
  • ✅ Historical Metrics Storage - Time-series data with retention policies and aggregation intervals (v0.2.12)
  • ✅ 97+ comprehensive tests (unit, integration, documentation, transformation, load balancing)

Performance:

  • ~200k route matches/sec on M1 MacBook Pro
  • P99 latency < 2ms for route matching
  • Handles 10k+ concurrent requests reliably
  • Memory usage: ~25MB under load

What's Missing (Honestly)

  • No response caching layer (HTTP only)
  • No service discovery integration
  • Historical metrics API endpoints (storage implemented, API coming soon)
  • Time-series charts in UI (data layer ready, visualization pending)
  • No gRPC proxying (planned for future)
  • No distributed tracing integration (OpenTelemetry planned)
  • Route UI limitations - Currently supports basic single-backend mode only (multi-backend, load balancing, retry config UI coming soon)
  • No historical metrics with time-series charts yet
  • Protocol-specific features:
    • WebSocket: Advanced compression and custom protocol extensions
    • FTP: FTPS/SFTP support and advanced file operations
    • DNS: TCP support and DNSSEC validation

Recently Added (v0.2.10):

  • ✅ Docker multi-platform support (AMD64 and ARM64)
  • ✅ Automated version tagging from Cargo.toml
  • ✅ Distroless debug containers with shell access
  • ✅ Docker deployment documentation and examples

Previously Added (v0.2.9):

  • ✅ Multi-protocol support - WebSocket, FTP, and DNS proxying
  • ✅ Protocol-specific validation - Comprehensive validation for each protocol
  • ✅ Protocol services - WebSocket handler, FTP operations, DNS forwarding with cache
  • ✅ HTTP API wrappers - FTP and DNS operations accessible via REST APIs

📅 Development Plan

Phase 1: Make it Production Usable (Next 1-2 months) ✅ COMPLETED

Goal: Something you could actually deploy and not be embarrassed about

Week 1-2: Core Reliability ✅ DONE

  • ✅ Better error handling - Proper error responses, timeouts
  • ✅ Configuration validation - Fail fast on bad config
  • ✅ Graceful shutdown - Handle SIGTERM properly
  • ✅ Basic metrics endpoint - Prometheus-compatible /metrics

Week 3-4: Security Basics ✅ DONE

  • ✅ JWT validation - Validate bearer tokens with configurable claims
  • ✅ Request size limits - Prevent large payload attacks
  • ✅ CORS support - Configurable CORS policies
  • ✅ Rate limiting improvements - Per-route limits with multiple algorithms

Week 5-8: Monitoring & Ops ✅ DONE

  • ✅ Health checks - Check upstream service health
  • ✅ Request tracing - Add correlation IDs
  • ✅ Better logging - Structured JSON logging
  • ✅ Configuration hot-reload - Update routes without restart

Success Criteria: ✅ ACHIEVED

  • ✅ Can handle 10k+ RPS reliably
  • ✅ Has comprehensive observability
  • ✅ Won't fall over under normal load
  • ✅ Has security features for public APIs

Phase 2: Multi-Protocol Support & Advanced Routing ✅ COMPLETED (v0.2.9 - October 2025)

Goal: Extend beyond HTTP with multi-protocol support and complete admin UI

Multi-Protocol Implementation ✅ COMPLETED

  • ✅ WebSocket proxying - Real-time bidirectional communication with connection lifecycle management
  • ✅ FTP gateway - File operations through proxy with active/passive mode support
  • ✅ DNS forwarding - DNS query proxying with intelligent caching and TTL handling
  • ✅ Protocol abstraction layer - Unified protocol enum (Http, WebSocket, Ftp, Dns)
  • ✅ Protocol-aware routing - Router configuration with protocol field support
  • ✅ Comprehensive testing - 90+ tests across all protocol types

Route Management Backend ✅ COMPLETED

  • ✅ Route CRUD endpoints - Implemented /api/routes endpoints in gateway
  • ✅ Configuration persistence - Save changes to config.json
  • ✅ Hot-reload trigger API - Endpoint to trigger config reload
  • ✅ Route validation API - Server-side validation before saving

UI Feature Completion ✅ COMPLETED

  • ✅ Route management UI - Complete CRUD interface for routes with professional design
  • ✅ Configuration Management UI - Complete interface for JWT, rate limiting, CORS, metrics, server settings (v0.2.11)
  • ✅ Advanced Metrics Dashboard - 5 specialized views with performance insights (v0.2.11)
  • ✅ Configuration API Backend - 6 REST endpoints for configuration management (v0.2.11)
  • ✅ Form validation - Client and server-side validation with error handling
  • ✅ Professional styling - Modern UI with gradients, animations, and color-coding
  • ✅ Server functions - Type-safe API calls from UI to gateway
  • WebSocket support - Real-time metrics updates (NEXT PRIORITY)
  • Historical metrics - Time-series data with charts (PLANNED)

Advanced Routing ✅ COMPLETED

  • ✅ Load balancing - 5 strategies (round-robin, least connections, random, weighted, IP hash)
  • ✅ Retry logic - Exponential backoff with configurable policies
  • Request transformation - Modify headers/paths before forwarding (PLANNED)
  • Response transformation - Modify response headers and status codes (PLANNED)

Success Criteria (Updated):

  • ✅ Multi-protocol support (HTTP, WebSocket, FTP, DNS) fully implemented
  • ✅ Protocol-aware routing and load balancing
  • ✅ Full route management API backend completed
  • ✅ Configuration changes persist correctly via API
  • ✅ Load balancing with 5 strategies implemented
  • ✅ Retry logic with exponential backoff and circuit breakers
  • ✅ 97+ comprehensive tests across all protocols
  • ✅ UI components for route management - COMPLETED with professional design
  • ✅ Form validation - COMPLETED with client and server-side validation
  • ✅ Configuration Management UI - COMPLETED (JWT, rate limiting, CORS, metrics, server)
  • ✅ Configuration Management API - COMPLETED (6 REST endpoints)
  • ✅ Advanced Metrics Dashboard - COMPLETED (5 specialized views with insights)
  • ✅ Request/response transformation - COMPLETED (v0.2.12)
  • ✅ Historical metrics storage - COMPLETED (v0.2.12)
  • Historical metrics API endpoints (IN PROGRESS)
  • Time-series charts UI (PLANNED)
  • WebSocket real-time updates (PLANNED)

Phase 3: Performance & Observability (v0.3.x - Months 3-4) 🔄 IN PROGRESS

Goal: Handle serious production loads with comprehensive monitoring

  • Response caching - In-memory and Redis backends
  • Connection pooling optimization - Better upstream connections
  • Compression - gzip/brotli response compression
  • Performance monitoring - Latency histograms, throughput metrics
  • ✅ Historical metrics storage - COMPLETED (v0.2.12) - Time-series data with retention and aggregation
  • Historical metrics API - REST endpoints for querying time-series data (IN PROGRESS)
  • Time-series charts - Interactive visualization in UI (PLANNED)
  • Per-route analytics - Detailed breakdown by route
  • Distributed tracing - OpenTelemetry integration
  • Custom dashboards - User-configurable metric views in UI

Phase 4: AI-Powered Gateway Features (Months 4-6) 🤖 NEW

Goal: Leverage AI/LLM capabilities for intelligent routing and request processing

  • AI-powered route optimization - ML-based routing decisions based on load, latency, and success rates
  • LLM request transformation - Use LLMs to intelligently transform requests/responses
  • Smart load balancing - AI-driven backend selection based on request content analysis
  • Intelligent rate limiting - Dynamic rate limits based on request patterns and user behavior
  • Content-aware routing - Route requests to specialized backends based on content analysis
  • Auto-scaling recommendations - AI-generated insights for infrastructure optimization

Phase 5: Enterprise Features & Developer Experience (v0.5.x - Months 6-8)

Goal: Make it easy to use, manage, and secure for enterprise deployments

  • Authentication & Authorization - Login system for admin UI
  • User management - Multiple users with role-based access control
  • Audit logging - Track all configuration changes
  • Multi-gateway support - Manage multiple gateway instances from one UI
  • ✅ Admin UI - COMPLETED - Web interface for configuration and monitoring
  • Enhanced CLI tool - Command-line management with interactive mode
  • Better documentation - Interactive tutorials, video guides
  • Deployment guides - Docker, Kubernetes, cloud-native deployments (Docker completed v0.2.10)
  • Plugin system - Custom middleware and extensions
  • API versioning - Support multiple API versions
  • Dark mode - Theme switching in admin UI

Immediate Priorities (Next 2 Weeks)

  1. Historical metrics API endpoints - REST API for querying time-series data
  2. WebSocket real-time updates - Replace polling with WebSocket connections
  3. Time-series charts UI - Interactive visualization with zoom and custom time ranges
  4. Advanced route configuration UI - Multi-backend, load balancing, and retry config forms
  5. Transformation UI - Visual editor for request/response transformation rules

Feature Requests We've Received

Based on feedback from users and contributors:

  • ✅ JWT authentication - COMPLETED - Most requested feature
  • ✅ Admin UI - COMPLETED - Modern web interface with real-time dashboard
  • ✅ Route Management UI - COMPLETED - Full CRUD interface with professional design
  • ✅ Configuration Management UI - COMPLETED - JWT, rate limiting, CORS, metrics, server settings (v0.2.11)
  • ✅ Metrics/monitoring - COMPLETED - Prometheus metrics, comprehensive observability, and advanced dashboard (v0.2.11)
  • ✅ Better error handling - COMPLETED - Structured errors with helpful messages
  • ✅ Load balancing - COMPLETED - 5 strategies for HA deployments
  • ✅ Retry logic - COMPLETED - Exponential backoff with configurable policies
  • ✅ Request transformation - COMPLETED (v0.2.12) - Header manipulation, path rewriting, query parameters
  • ✅ Response transformation - COMPLETED (v0.2.12) - Header modification, status code mapping
  • ✅ Historical metrics storage - COMPLETED (v0.2.12) - Time-series data with retention and aggregation
  • Historical metrics API - IN PROGRESS - REST endpoints for time-series queries
  • Time-series charts - PLANNED - Interactive visualization in UI
  • WebSocket real-time updates - PLANNED - Replace polling with live connections
  • 🤖 AI/LLM Integration - FUTURE - Intelligent routing and request processing

How You Can Help

If you're interested in contributing:

  1. Try it out - Use the gateway and admin UI, report issues
  2. Historical metrics API - Add REST endpoints for time-series data queries
  3. Time-series charts - Build interactive charts with zoom and time range selection
  4. WebSocket real-time updates - Replace polling with live connections
  5. Advanced route UI - Add multi-backend and load balancing configuration forms
  6. Transformation UI - Build visual editor for transformation rules
  7. Improve documentation - Add examples, fix typos, write tutorials
  8. Write tests - Expand test coverage for UI and gateway
  9. Performance testing - Load test and find bottlenecks

Good first issues:

  • Add REST endpoints for historical metrics
  • Build time-series chart components in UI
  • WebSocket support for real-time metrics updates
  • Transformation rule visual editor
  • Write examples for transformation configurations
  • Create historical metrics charts
  • Performance testing and optimization
  • Implement response caching layer

Success Metrics

Technical Goals:

  • Handle 50k+ RPS (currently ~10k)
  • P99 latency under 5ms (currently ~2ms)
  • 99.9% uptime in production use
  • Zero memory leaks under load
  • 🤖 AI latency under 10ms - Keep AI decisions fast
  • Smart routing accuracy >95% - AI should make better decisions than static rules

Community Goals:

  • 50+ contributors
  • 500+ GitHub stars
  • Used in at least 20 real projects
  • Active issue discussions and PRs
  • First production-ready open-source API gateway with modern web UI
  • 🤖 First AI-powered open source API gateway - Pioneer in the space (Phase 4)

Things We Won't Do

Out of scope (at least for now):

  • WebSocket proxying
  • gRPC support
  • Complex authentication flows
  • Service mesh features
  • Database integration
  • Message queue integration

We want to do HTTP proxying really well before expanding scope.

How This Roadmap Changes

This roadmap will evolve based on:

  • User feedback and feature requests
  • Technical discoveries during implementation
  • Available contributor time and interest
  • Real-world usage patterns

Last major update: November 7, 2025 - Released v0.2.12 with Request/Response Transformation system (header manipulation, path rewriting, query parameter transformation, status code mapping) and Historical Metrics Storage (time-series data with configurable retention policies, aggregation intervals, and query API). Added 22 comprehensive tests covering all transformation scenarios and metrics storage operations.

Questions about the roadmap? Open an issue and let's discuss!

This roadmap reflects our current best thinking, but software development is unpredictable. Features may be delayed, changed, or dropped based on what we learn.