syntaxis/docs/databases/surrealdb/surrealdb-implementation-checklist.md

SurrealDB Implementation Checklist

Complete checklist for implementing SurrealDB support with configuration-based selection and migration tool.

✅ Phase 1: Design & Planning (Week 1)

Architecture

• Design Database trait with all required methods
• Plan SQLite adapter implementation
• Plan SurrealDB adapter implementation
• Plan configuration schema (TOML structure)
• Design migration tool architecture

Configuration System

• Define DatabaseConfig struct with engine selection
• Create config examples (sqlite.toml, surrealdb.toml)
• Plan environment variable overrides
• Design config validation logic

Testing Strategy

• Plan mock Database implementation
• Plan unit tests for each backend
• Plan integration tests
• Plan E2E tests
• Plan performance benchmarks

---

✅ Phase 2: Trait Layer & SQLite Refactoring (Weeks 1-2)

Core Trait Definition (syntaxis-core/src/persistence/mod.rs)

• Define #[async_trait] pub trait Database
• Extract all 50+ method signatures
• Document trait with rustdoc
• Add error handling trait bounds
• Create tests for trait interface

Configuration Loading

• Create DatabaseConfig struct (serde)
• Implement config loading from TOML
• Add environment variable override support
• Add config validation
• Create example configs

SQLite Adapter

• Move current persistence.rs code to sqlite_impl.rs
• Implement Database trait for SqliteDatabase
• Test all existing functionality
• Verify backward compatibility

File Structure

• Create syntaxis-core/src/persistence/
  • mod.rs (trait definition)
  • sqlite_impl.rs (SQLite implementation)
  • error.rs (unified error handling)
  • config.rs (configuration management)

---

✅ Phase 3: SurrealDB Implementation (Weeks 2-3)

SurrealDB Adapter (syntaxis-core/src/persistence/surrealdb_impl.rs)

• Create SurrealDatabase struct
• Initialize SurrealDB connection
• Implement schema initialization
• Implement Database trait for SurrealDatabase
  • Project operations (CRUD)
  • Checklist operations
  • Phase transition operations
  • Security assessment operations
  • Tool configuration operations
  • Activity logging operations
  • Backup history operations

Schema Definition

• Create SurrealQL schema definitions
• Define collections (projects, checklist_items, etc.)
• Define relationships (RELATE for phase transitions)
• Create indices for performance
• Document schema structure

Query Optimization

• Test graph queries (phase transitions)
• Test document queries (tool configs)
• Test filtering and sorting
• Optimize query performance
• Create performance benchmarks

---

✅ Phase 4: Migration Tool (Week 3)

Data Migration Strategy

• Design migration architecture
• Create SQLite → SurrealDB migration tool
  • Read all data from SQLite
  • Transform to SurrealDB format
  • Validate data integrity
  • Handle relationships (foreign keys → RELATE)

CLI for Migration

• Create workspace migrate command
• Add --from sqlite --to surrealdb flags
• Add --dry-run option
• Add --backup option (backup before migration)
• Add validation and error reporting

Rollback Support

• Design rollback strategy
• Implement backup mechanism
• Create workspace migrate --rollback command
• Document recovery procedures

Testing

• Create test data
• Test migration with various data sizes
• Test rollback functionality
• Verify data integrity post-migration

---

✅ Phase 5: Runtime Selection (Weeks 3-4)

Backend Selection Enum

• Create DatabaseBackend enum
  • DatabaseBackend::Sqlite(SqliteDatabase)
  • DatabaseBackend::SurrealDB(SurrealDatabase)
• Implement Database trait for enum
• Add runtime selection logic

Configuration-Driven Initialization

• Load config file
• Parse engine selection
• Create appropriate backend
• Handle initialization errors gracefully
• Log selected backend

Documentation

• Create user guide for config selection
• Document each configuration option
• Provide example configurations
• Document environment variables
• Document migration procedures

---

✅ Phase 6: Integration & Testing (Week 4)

Binary Updates

• syntaxis-cli - Accept database config
• syntaxis-tui - Handle database initialization
• syntaxis-api - Use DatabaseBackend
• syntaxis-dashboard - Connect to backend

Unit Tests

• SQLite adapter tests (170+ tests)
• SurrealDB adapter tests (170+ tests)
• Configuration loading tests
• Migration tool tests
• Backend selection tests

Integration Tests

• Create project → store → retrieve (SQLite)
• Create project → store → retrieve (SurrealDB)
• Phase transitions (graph queries)
• Complex filtering
• Concurrent operations

E2E Tests

• CLI workflow (SQLite)
• CLI workflow (SurrealDB)
• TUI operations (SQLite)
• TUI operations (SurrealDB)
• API endpoints (SQLite)
• API endpoints (SurrealDB)

Performance Benchmarks

• Read performance (SQLite vs SurrealDB)
• Write performance (SQLite vs SurrealDB)
• Complex query performance
• Memory usage
• Connection pooling

---

✅ Phase 7: Documentation & Deployment (Week 5)

User Documentation

• Configuration guide (how to choose backend)
• Migration guide (SQLite → SurrealDB)
• Troubleshooting guide
• Performance tuning guide
• Backup/restore procedures

Developer Documentation

• Architecture documentation
• Database trait reference
• SQLite implementation guide
• SurrealDB implementation guide
• Adding new backends (extension guide)

Deployment Documentation

• Docker setup (SurrealDB server)
• Production deployment guide
• Kubernetes deployment guide
• Monitoring and observability
• Disaster recovery procedures

Release Artifacts

• Update CHANGELOG.md
• Create migration guide
• Create release notes
• Update README with backend options
• Create compatibility matrix

---

Configuration Examples

SQLite (Current/Default)

# configs/database-sqlite.toml
[database]
engine = "sqlite"
sqlite_path = "~/.local/share/core/workspace.db"
max_connections = 5
timeout_secs = 30

SurrealDB (Cloud-Ready)

# configs/database-surrealdb.toml
[database]
engine = "surrealdb"

[database.surrealdb]
url = "ws://surrealdb-server:8000"
namespace = "syntaxis"
database = "projects"
username = "${SURREALDB_USER}"    # From env var
password = "${SURREALDB_PASSWORD}"
max_connections = 10
timeout_secs = 30

PostgreSQL (Future)

# configs/database-postgres.toml (for future implementation)
[database]
engine = "postgres"

[database.postgres]
host = "${POSTGRES_HOST}"
port = 5432
username = "${POSTGRES_USER}"
password = "${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}"
database = "syntaxis"
max_connections = 20
timeout_secs = 30

---

Migration Tool CLI

Commands

# Show current database
workspace database status

# List available backends
workspace database list-backends

# Migrate from SQLite to SurrealDB
workspace database migrate \
  --from sqlite \
  --to surrealdb \
  --target-url ws://surrealdb-server:8000 \
  --backup

# Dry run (show what would happen)
workspace database migrate \
  --from sqlite \
  --to surrealdb \
  --dry-run

# Rollback migration
workspace database migrate --rollback

# Validate data integrity
workspace database validate

---

Testing Checklist

Unit Tests (Minimum Coverage: 80%)

• Database trait contract tests
• SQLite implementation tests (all 50+ methods)
• SurrealDB implementation tests (all 50+ methods)
• Configuration loading tests
• Error handling tests
• Backend selection tests

Integration Tests

• Full syntaxis (SQLite)
• Full syntaxis (SurrealDB)
• Data consistency across backends
• Transaction handling
• Concurrent operations
• Error recovery

Migration Tests

• SQLite → SurrealDB migration (small dataset)
• SQLite → SurrealDB migration (large dataset)
• Data integrity post-migration
• Rollback functionality
• Performance during migration
• Concurrent operations during migration

Performance Tests

• Read throughput (1000 operations)
• Write throughput (1000 operations)
• Complex queries (10 scenarios)
• Memory usage over time
• Connection pool efficiency

---

Documentation Deliverables

User-Facing

• Configuration Quick Start Guide
• How to Choose Your Backend (decision matrix)
• SQLite Configuration Guide
• SurrealDB Configuration Guide
• Migration Guide (SQLite → SurrealDB)
• Troubleshooting Guide
• Performance Tuning Guide
• Backup & Restore Guide

Developer-Facing

• Architecture Overview
• Database Trait Reference
• SQLite Implementation Details
• SurrealDB Implementation Details
• Adding New Backends (extension guide)
• Testing Strategy
• Performance Benchmarks

Operations-Facing

• Production Deployment Guide
• Docker Compose Setup
• Kubernetes Deployment
• Monitoring & Observability
• Disaster Recovery
• Capacity Planning

---

Code Quality Checklist

Before release:

Formatting & Linting

• cargo fmt --all ✅
• cargo clippy --all-targets ✅
• No warnings
• Documentation complete

Testing

• All unit tests pass (>80% coverage)
• All integration tests pass
• All E2E tests pass
• Performance benchmarks documented
• No flaky tests

Security

• No unsafe code
• No unwrap() in production
• SQL injection protected (parameterized queries)
• Authentication validated
• No hardcoded credentials
• Secrets from environment variables

Performance

• Benchmarks < 10ms per query (simple)
• Benchmarks < 100ms per query (complex)
• Memory usage reasonable
• Connection pooling working
• No N+1 queries

---

Success Criteria

✅ Phase Complete When:

1. Configuration System

   • Both backends configurable via TOML
   • Environment variables supported
   • Runtime selection working

2. Both Backends Working

   • SQLite implementation passes all tests
   • SurrealDB implementation passes all tests
   • Data integrity verified across both

3. Migration Tool

   • SQLite → SurrealDB migration working
   • Data integrity verified post-migration
   • Rollback working
   • Backup/restore working

4. Documentation

   • User guide complete
   • Developer guide complete
   • API documentation complete
   • Configuration examples provided

5. Quality

   • All tests passing (632+ tests)
   • >80% code coverage
   • Performance benchmarks documented
   • Zero breaking changes (backward compatible)

---

Sign-off

• Development Team - Implementation complete
• QA Team - Testing complete, issues resolved
• Security Team - Security review passed
• Operations Team - Deployment ready
• Product Team - Feature approved for release

---

Timeline Estimate

Phase	Duration	Start	End
1	1 week	Week 1	Week 1
2	2 weeks	Week 1	Week 2
3	2 weeks	Week 2	Week 3
4	1 week	Week 3	Week 3
5	1 week	Week 3	Week 4
6	1 week	Week 4	Week 4
7	1 week	Week 5	Week 5
Total	5-6 weeks

With 1 full-time developer + 0.5 QA + 0.5 DevOps

---

Notes

• All phases can overlap (agile approach)
• Testing should be continuous, not end-phase
• Documentation should be written as you code
• Regular demos to stakeholders every Friday
• Regular sync-ups (3x per week recommended)