Roadmap

The roadmap follows the evidence hierarchy: scientific correctness, evidence integrity, authorship accuracy, reproducibility, traceability, safety, usability, and visual polish.

Current alpha baseline

• SPM-Kit core, CLI, and Fathom share one numerical implementation.
• Image metrology, force spectroscopy, KPFM, spectral, resonance, reporting, and extension paths are implemented with different evidence maturity.
• Selected Sa/Sq/Sz claims have LEVEL 3 external comparison evidence.
• The limited Nanoscope III .spm path has LEVEL 2 evidence for six demonstrated files and remains partial.
• All other maturity claims are listed in Scientific status.

Evidence priorities

1. Acquire redistributable, independently curated reader fixtures across vendors, versions, channels, orientations, and operating systems.
2. Freeze independent force-spectroscopy comparisons with explicit calibration, preprocessing, models, fitting windows, tolerances, and uncertainty.
3. Run a genuinely blind holdout campaign that has not been exposed during implementation or preflight.
4. Add calibrated physical-reference campaigns without promoting narrow experimental evidence into universal validity.
5. Obtain independent reproduction of a frozen public campaign.

Engineering priorities

• stabilize the public API and project format before 1.0;
• make optional-reader failures and capability discovery clearer;
• expand packaging and GUI smoke coverage across macOS, Linux, and Windows;
• automate drift checks for package version, citation DOI, author, and public links;
• keep Fathom presentation code thin over spmkit.core.

Community priorities

• small format fixtures with explicit redistribution rights;
• independently generated Gwyddion/TopoStats comparisons;
• AFMReader interoperability work that respects project licenses and APIs;
• failed cases and negative evidence, not only successful examples.

Roadmap entries are intentions (LEVEL 0 — CLAIMED) until implementation and evidence are preserved.