---
schema_version: 1
id: RAC-KTR5QS8XNKFV
type: roadmap
---
# RAC v0.8.5 — Explorer Relationship Navigation

## Status

Planned

## Context

The Explorer requirement's Understand capability requires exploring
relationships and dependencies between artifacts.

RAC Core owns relationship intelligence: relationships are explicit
structural references parsed, validated, and resolved deterministically
(ADR-016). Artifact context views (v0.8.1) list direct relationships, but
users cannot yet traverse the knowledge graph or reason about impact and
lineage (DESIGN-knowledge-graph).

## Outcomes

- Users can navigate from any artifact across its relationships to
  understand how repository knowledge connects.
- Users can answer "what depends on this?" and "how did this evolve?" from
  within Explorer.
- All relationship views render Core relationship models in
  terminal-readable form.

## Initiatives

### Initiative 1 — Relationship Views and Traversal

From any artifact, display its relationships and allow navigation to each
connected artifact, continuing traversal across the graph:

```text
ROADMAP-Q3  →  REQ-004  →  ADR-012
```

### Initiative 2 — Impact View

Show downstream dependencies of an artifact:

```text
Impact of ADR-004

Affected:

REQ-001
REQ-007
PROMPT-003
```

### Initiative 3 — Lineage View

Show how an artifact evolved:

```text
REQ-001

Created

Updated

Superseded By
```

### Initiative 4 — Traceability Exploration

Support following the expected relationship graph from requirements to the
artifacts that implement, constrain, and express them (ADR-020):

```text
Requirement
  ├── implemented by → Roadmap
  ├── constrained by → ADR
  └── experienced through → Design
```

### Initiative 5 — Terminal-Readable Rendering

Relationship views prioritize terminal readability over graphical
complexity. No interactive canvas or web-style graph editor.

## Implementation Contract

The following decisions are pinned for v0.8.5.

### Source

- Every relationship view renders the loaded repository model's `Relationship`
  objects (source, kind, raw target, resolved path, issue) — the same data
  `rac relationships` reports (ADR-016). Explorer traverses; it infers no
  relationships and edits none (ADR-015).

### Relationship Screen

- A `RelationshipScreen` for an artifact shows three sections: its outgoing
  relationships (with resolved titles, or a `✗ unresolved` marker), its impact
  ("what depends on this?" — the artifacts whose references resolve to it), and
  its lineage (Supersedes / Superseded By). The connected, resolved artifacts
  form one selectable list; opening one shows its context view, and `g` from
  there reopens relationships — traversal continues, Esc unwinds.
- Reachable with `g` from the context view and via `/relationships <ref>`.

### Traceability and Lineage

- Traceability (ADR-020) is the same outgoing/incoming traversal followed from a
  requirement; no separate engine. Lineage covers Supersedes and Superseded By;
  Created/Updated timestamps are not modelled by Core and are out of scope.

### Rendering

- Terminal-readable text only — no canvas or graph editor (Initiative 5).
  Status carries text labels beside symbols (ADR-028).

### Scope

- Presentation over the existing model: no Core or service changes, no JSON
  contract movement, existing CLI output byte-identical. Adapter gains
  `relationships_view`; `state.py` gains `RelationshipLink` and
  `RelationshipsView`; `relationships` joins the command registry. The explorer
  battery absorbs the tests.

## Non-Goals

- Manual relationship editing inside Explorer (relationships are authored in
  artifacts, ADR-016)
- Inferred or AI-generated relationships
- Relationship intelligence in Explorer (ADR-015)

## Success Measures

- A user can understand how repository knowledge connects together by
  traversing relationships from any starting artifact.
- Impact and lineage views match the relationship data reported by `rac
  relationships` and related JSON output.
- Views remain usable on large repositories.

## Related Decisions

- ADR-015
- ADR-016
- ADR-020

## Related Designs

- explorer-knowledge-graph

## Related Requirements

- rac-product-knowledge-navigator-explorer

## Dependencies

- v0.8.0 repository and relationship models
- v0.8.1 artifact context view and navigation
- Existing relationships service
