# Vision

This product vision builds on the [organization manifesto](https://git.flowmade.one/flowmade-one/architecture/src/branch/main/manifesto.md).

## Who This Product Serves

### Flowmade Developers

The team building Flowmade's platform. They need reliable, auditable infrastructure for distributed systems without reinventing clustering and event sourcing.

*Extends: Agencies & Consultancies (from manifesto) - we are our own first customer.*

### Go Teams Building Event-Sourced Systems

Teams implementing event sourcing and CQRS patterns who want clear primitives that compose well, not a heavyweight framework.

*Extends: Organizations (from manifesto) - they need maintainable, evolvable infrastructure.*

## What They're Trying to Achieve

These trace back to organization-level jobs:

| Product Job | Enables Org Job |
|-------------|-----------------|
| "Build distributed systems without reinventing clustering" | "Delivering solutions faster with maintained quality" |
| "Store events as source of truth with full history" | "Adapting solutions as needs evolve" (replay, rebuild, audit) |
| "Scale horizontally without complexity" | "Reducing developer dependency" (infrastructure handles it) |
| "Isolate concerns with namespaces" | "Software aligned with actual workflows" (logical boundaries) |

## The Problem

Building distributed, event-sourced systems in Go requires assembling many pieces: event storage, pub/sub, clustering, leader election. Existing solutions are either:

- **Too heavy** - Full frameworks with opinions about your domain
- **Too light** - Just pub/sub, you build everything else
- **Not NATS-native** - Bolted-on integrations that don't leverage JetStream properly

## The Solution

Aether provides clear primitives that compose well:

- **Event sourcing primitives** - Event, EventStore interface, snapshots
- **Event stores** - In-memory (testing) and JetStream (production)
- **Event bus** - Local and NATS-backed pub/sub with namespace isolation
- **Cluster management** - Node discovery, leader election, shard distribution
- **Namespace isolation** - Logical boundaries for multi-scope deployments

Built for JetStream from the ground up, not bolted on.

## Product Principles

These extend the organization's guiding principles:

### Primitives Over Frameworks

Provide composable building blocks, not an opinionated framework. Let users build what they need.

*Extends: "Design amplification for individual capability"*

### NATS-Native

Built for JetStream from the start. Leverage NATS capabilities fully rather than abstracting them away.

*Extends: "Sensible defaults with available alternatives"*

### Resource Conscious

Efficient on modest hardware. NATS is lightweight; Aether should be too. ARM64 friendly.

*Extends: "Software performs adequately on standard-capability hardware" and "ARM64 optimization"*

### Events as Complete History

Events are the source of truth. State is derived. This directly implements the manifesto belief that "systems should maintain comprehensive activity records, not merely current snapshots."

*Extends: "Systematize information rather than merely documenting it"*

## Non-Goals

These extend the organization's non-goals:

- **Opinionated multi-tenancy.** Product layer concern - Aether provides namespace primitives, not tenant management.
- **Domain-specific abstractions.** Use the primitives to build your domain model.
- **GraphQL/REST API generation.** Build on top of Aether, not inside it.
- **UI components.** See iris for UI concerns.
- **Replacing human judgment.** Aether automates infrastructure, not decisions.

## Architecture

This project follows organization architecture patterns.

### Alignment

- **Event Sourcing**: Core to this library - events as source of truth
- **Auditability**: Full event history, immutable records, replayable state
- **Loose Coupling**: Event bus for communication, namespaces for isolation
- **Domain Language**: Event types reflect business concepts

### Intentional Divergences

| Area | Standard Pattern | What We Do Instead | Why |
|------|------------------|-------------------|-----|
| Domain modeling | DDD aggregates | Generic Actor abstraction | Library provides primitives, not domain opinions |