# Product Backlog

Index of all epics, ordered by priority (top = highest priority). Each epic is its own file under `backlog/epics/`.

| Order | Epic | File | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | End-to-End Text Rendering Slice | `epics/01_end_to_end_text_rendering_slice.md` | In Progress (2 of 3 stories Done — Sprint 1) |
| 2 | Template Designer GUI Foundation | `epics/02_template_designer_gui_foundation.md` | Done (4 of 4 stories — Sprint 2) |
| 3 | CSV Integration and Field Mapping | `epics/03_csv_integration_and_field_mapping.md` | Ready |
| 4 | CLI Rendering Engine and Debenu Integration | `epics/05_cli_rendering_engine_and_debenu_integration.md` | In Progress (4 of 7 stories Done — Sprint 1-2) |
| 5 | Live Preview and Record Navigation | `epics/04_live_preview_and_record_navigation.md` | Ready |
| 6 | Layout Efficiency and Operator Tooling | `epics/06_layout_efficiency_and_operator_tooling.md` | Not Started |
| 7 | Dynamic and Network Image Handling | `epics/07_dynamic_and_network_image_handling.md` | Not Started |

## Notes
- Prioritization favors the requirements document's recommended vertical slicing: deliver a text-only end-to-end workflow first, then layer images, shapes, and operator-efficiency tooling.
- The CLI/rendering epic now sits ahead of preview in the ordered backlog because it is a direct dependency for the first demonstrable PDF-generating slice.
- The top five epics now contain sprint-ready stories for the first one to two sprints of MVP work.
- Open requirement questions that may affect ordering: path strategy for template assets and timeout behavior for slow UNC shares.

### Sprint 1 Review outcome (2026-09-11)
- Sprint 1's 5 committed stories are Done; verification detail and any caveats are recorded story-by-story in `backlog/epics/01_end_to_end_text_rendering_slice.md` and `backlog/epics/05_cli_rendering_engine_and_debenu_integration.md`. Full summary: `backlog/sprints/sprint-1.md` (Sprint Review Outcome section).
- Recommend pulling "Time-box the first high-volume benchmark" (`epics/05`, 5 points, Ready) early in Sprint 2 refinement/planning alongside whatever else is pulled from epics 2-3 — it's a cheap, high-information risk check that's now overdue (not re-run since Sprint 1 Batch 2) rather than a reason to reorder the epic list itself.
- New stories added from this review: "Harden production configuration delivery for CLI runtime settings" (`epics/05`) and "Surface real warning counts in progress and completion reporting" (`epics/07`). Neither is urgent for Sprint 2's likely candidates (epics 2-3 touch neither CLI configuration nor warnings).
- The two open impediments (template asset path strategy; UNC timeout/retry behavior, both in `logs/impediment_log.md`) do **not** block Sprint 2's likely candidate epics (2 and 3) — neither of those epics' stories touch images or network asset paths. They only need to be resolved before epic 7 (Dynamic and Network Image Handling) stories are pulled into a sprint; recommend deciding them during backlog refinement once epic 7 nears the top of the backlog, per "delay firm decisions to the last responsible moment," rather than treating them as urgent now.

### Sprint 2 Review outcome (2026-09-18)
- Sprint 2's 5 committed stories (the full Template Designer GUI Foundation epic plus the high-volume benchmark spike, 19 points) are Done; verification detail is recorded story-by-story in `backlog/epics/02_template_designer_gui_foundation.md` and `backlog/epics/05_cli_rendering_engine_and_debenu_integration.md`. Full summary: `backlog/sprints/sprint-2.md` (Sprint Review Outcome section).
- **Material finding, not a defect in this sprint's delivery:** the benchmark spike found the render path badly misses the product's "100,000 records at 300 DPI in under 10 minutes" hard constraint — throughput degrades from ~399 rec/s to ~15 rec/s and falling at realistic scale, projecting 45-90+ minutes for a full 100k run (5x-10x+ over target), most likely due to Debenu Quick PDF Library 10.13's own document model rather than this repo's code. Full data: `code/BENCHMARK.md`. **Strong recommendation: prioritize the new "Investigate and address high-volume render throughput degradation" story (`epics/05`, Ready, not yet sized) at or near the top of Sprint 3**, ahead of or alongside CSV Integration — this is a High-impact item that directly threatens a hard product constraint (`project_config.md`) and gets worse, not better, the longer higher-volume-dependent feature work (CSV integration at scale, eventual 1M-record ceiling) is built on top of an unfixed render path.
- The stretch item ("Load CSV headers and sample rows into the desktop app," epic 3) was not pulled in Sprint 2; it remains the natural first CSV Integration story for Sprint 3.
- No changes to the two open impediments (template path strategy; UNC timeout/retry) — still non-blocking for Sprint 3's likely candidates (CSV Integration and the throughput investigation touch neither template image paths nor network shares).