# Rload release plan
## Current status
- `rload` 0.1.2 is published to crates.io; 0.2.0 release preparation is in
progress on this branch.
- The package includes the standard license files and third-party notice.
- The package metadata points to the public repository, homepage, and docs.rs.
- `./scripts/release-check.sh` is the required local gate.
- The 0.2.0 development branch adds CI gates for macOS, Linux, and Windows.
## Post-0.1.1 priorities
1. Add CI on macOS, Linux, and Windows for formatting, Clippy, tests, package
verification, and a smoke HTTP run. Windows must also verify path handling,
socket error recovery, and the release binary invocation from PowerShell.
2. Publish a signed changelog and migration notes from the old internal
`r-wrk` name to `rload`.
3. Fixed global replay rate control is implemented on the 0.2.0 development
branch with validation and configured/measured-rate reporting. It remains
independent from request selection order and burst profiles.
4. Access-log timestamp pacing is implemented on the 0.2.0 development branch:
it preserves inter-record gaps, supports a playback multiplier, accepts
second or fractional-second timestamps, rejects missing/decreasing values,
and explicitly treats the unknowable loop-boundary gap as zero. It is
independent from request selection and mutually exclusive with fixed rate.
5. Keep Lua/LuaJIT out of the first release line unless a separate compatibility
design and licensing review is approved.
6. Tolerant access-log replay is implemented on the 0.2.0 development branch:
unsupported methods are skipped, counted by method and total, and printed in
the final summary. Machine-readable result output remains to be designed.
7. Burst/stage traffic models are implemented on the 0.2.0 development branch.
Timed rate stages support baseline, spike, and recovery profiles, hold the
final rate after the profile ends, and remain independent from sequential,
shuffle, or random request selection.
8. Versioned machine-readable output is implemented with
`--output-format json`. Schema version 1 covers aggregate, latency, HTTP,
method, URI, socket-error, replay filtering/skipping, and pacing fields while
preserving the existing text output as the default.
## Future candidate features
- Automatic target inference from access-log fields that explicitly provide
scheme, host, and port. This is intentionally not scheduled for 0.2.0;
standard origin-form logs do not contain enough information to infer a target
safely.
- Optional GUI configuration interface built on top of the rload engine. The
GUI should configure and validate workloads, launch or attach to an rload
execution, and present live/final statistics without moving load-generation
logic into the UI. The CLI and engine must remain usable without GUI
dependencies.
## Deferred follow-up work
- Re-run the wrk accuracy matrix on a dedicated or separate-server host. This is
intentionally deferred and is not a blocker for the current 0.1.1 release
preparation.
- Investigate and resolve the zero-delay P99 sensitivity before claiming
unconditional parity across environments.
- Define the skipped-record output schema and verify that skipped access-log
entries do not affect sent-request latency, throughput, or URI statistics.
- Fixed-rate, timestamp, and stage pacing are mutually exclusive and covered by
multiplier, precision, transition, and duration-boundary tests.
## Benchmark policy
Every benchmark sign-off must cover three dimensions: functional completeness
regression, performance regression, and statistical accuracy. Each dimension
must compare the same three implementations under equivalent parameters:
`wrk`, the latest published rload release, and the current development build.
Use at least five alternating paired runs for statistical accuracy decisions;
record throughput, latency percentiles, errors, and peak RSS, and retain the
raw result directories with the report.
## Release checklist
- [x] Confirm crates.io metadata and README links resolve.
- [x] Run `./scripts/release-check.sh` on the release commit.
- [x] Run the local wrk accuracy and access-log replay matrices and archive
results.
- [ ] Run the deferred independent-server accuracy matrix (post-release task).
- [x] Review `LICENSE-MIT`, `LICENSE-APACHE`, and `THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`.
- [x] Update the version to 0.2.0 and run the final package gate.
- [ ] Tag the release and publish the changelog.
## Automated release workflow
Push a tag in the form `vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH` (for example `v0.2.0`) to run
`.github/workflows/release.yml`. The workflow validates that the tag matches
`Cargo.toml`, runs the release gate, publishes the crate, creates a GitHub
Release, updates `wenhaozhao/homebrew-rload`, and commits the new version to
the GitHub Pages homepage.
Required Actions secrets:
- `CARGO_REGISTRY_TOKEN`: crates.io API token with publish permission.
- `HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN`: fine-grained token with Contents read/write access to
`wenhaozhao/homebrew-rload`.
The workflow can also be started manually with a release tag input.