Steam roadmap

Purpose of this document: Define the product target for shipping Conversation Simulator as a free, sponsored Steam edition for non-technical players — without compromising the local-first, open-source, no-telemetry principles of the base project. Every downstream Steam-release issue should reference this document as its shared product target.

Release principles

Free on Steam, sponsored by Outright Mental

The Steam edition is and will remain free to download and play. There is no base purchase price, no subscription, and no pay-to-unlock core content. Outright Mental sponsors the distribution costs (Steam partner fees, code signing, CI infrastructure, release tooling) so the project can reach non-technical players without charging them.

Local-first play, no exceptions

The Steam edition makes the same guarantee as the open-source build:

Conversations, prompts, transcripts, audio, and model outputs stay on the player’s machine. Nothing is sent to any server during play. Model and pack downloads happen only when the player explicitly requests them.

This is backed by code and CI gates, not just policy. See privacy.md and network-security.md for the runtime enforcement details.

No telemetry

The Steam edition ships with telemetry absent, matching the open-source build. No usage analytics, session counts, feature-use events, or background pings are transmitted. If telemetry is ever proposed for a future milestone it will require explicit opt-in, documented notice, and a default-off posture — and it will never include conversation content.

Explicit model and pack downloads only

No model weights are silently bundled in the installer or downloaded without the player’s knowledge. Every model download must:

Display the model name and source before any bytes transfer.
Show the license (e.g. Apache 2.0, Llama Community License) so the player understands the terms.
Show the download size so the player can plan for disk space and bandwidth.
Show the SHA-256 checksum that will be verified after download.
Show the destination path on the player’s machine where the file will land.

Players must confirm each download. Cancelling a download must leave no partial files. Pack downloads follow the same rules.

No paid marketplace in v1

The Steam release does not include a paid content marketplace. Community packs may be distributed outside the app (GitHub, itch.io, direct links), but the in-app experience ships no payment rails, no premium pack tier, and no microtransactions in v1. Post-launch marketplace exploration is recorded as stage 5 of the release train and is explicitly deferred.

Release train

Work proceeds through the following stages. Each stage is a prerequisite for the next. Do not begin a stage until the prior stage’s acceptance criteria are met and its tracking issue is closed.

Stage	Description	Entry criterion
1. GitHub MVP	Open-source build reaches Milestone 1: stable text loop, voice I/O, workbench, official packs, offline smoke gate, full docs.	All ROADMAP.md Milestone 1 items are checked off.
2. Packaged desktop alpha	Tauri desktop app bundles `convsim-core` as a sidecar. Single installer on Windows, macOS, Linux. No Steam involvement yet.	GitHub MVP is tagged. Installer boots without CLI setup. Offline smoke test passes from the installed app.
3. Steam private beta	App is submitted to the Steam partner portal. Invited testers (developers, Outright Mental staff, select community members) validate the Steam overlay, controller navigation, and platform-specific quirks.	Packaged desktop alpha passes internal QA on all three desktop platforms. Steam page draft is approved by Valve.
4. Public free Steam release	App is published as a free title on Steam. All four official packs are available. Model Manager UI is stable.	Steam private beta exit criteria are met. Code signing is in place on macOS and Windows. Steam Deck verification is complete (see Target platforms).
5. Post-launch: marketplace exploration	Evaluate whether a community pack browser or optional Outright Mental-curated content makes sense as a zero-cost or patron-supported layer. No decision has been made; this is a research milestone only. See `docs/marketplace-architecture.md` for the entry gate criteria and design baseline.	Public release has been live for at least 90 days. Community feedback and usage signals inform the evaluation. Entry gate from `docs/marketplace-architecture.md` must be satisfied before any implementation issue is opened.

Target platforms

The Steam edition targets the following platforms at public release. All four must pass the release smoke matrix (see docs/release-checklist.md) before the public release gate is opened.

Platform	Tier	Notes
Windows 10 / 11 (x86-64)	Required	Primary target. NSIS installer. SmartScreen code signing required.
macOS 13+ (Apple Silicon and Intel)	Required	Universal binary preferred. Gatekeeper notarisation required. `.dmg` installer.
Linux (x86-64, glibc)	Required	AppImage or Flatpak. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Fedora 40.
Steam Deck / SteamOS (x86-64)	Required for public release	Verified (not Playable) tier. Controller navigation must work in the main menu and model manager. Keyboard input must work in-game. Battery impact must be documented.

Steam Deck verification checklist

Steam Deck verification is a Valve process; meeting these criteria makes approval likely but Valve has final say.

The app launches in Gaming Mode without additional setup steps.
All menus are navigable with the Steam Deck controller (D-pad + A/B/X/Y, left stick, trackpad).
The on-screen keyboard appears automatically for any text-input field.
Text is readable at 1280×800 without zooming.
No required UI element is hidden behind a mouse-only interaction.
The offline smoke test passes under SteamOS 3.x.

Model download transparency

This section expands the release principle into a specification that the model manager UI must satisfy before the packaged desktop alpha stage opens.

Required display before any download begins

Model:       Qwen3 4B Instruct (Q4_K_M)
Source:      Hugging Face — Qwen/Qwen3-4B-GGUF
License:     Apache 2.0 (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
Size:        2.6 GB
Checksum:    SHA-256 — a3b1c2...  (verified after download)
Destination: ~/.convsim/models/qwen3-4b-q4_k_m.gguf

All six fields are mandatory. A model entry that omits any field must not appear in the download UI.

Verification after download

After the file transfer completes, the model manager must:

Compute the SHA-256 checksum of the downloaded file locally.
Compare it against the value from the model registry.
If the checksums match: mark the model as installed and available.
If the checksums do not match: delete the partial file, display an error, and offer to retry. Never leave a failed download in place.

The model registry file (model-registry/) is the authoritative source of checksums. A new model entry must not be merged into the registry without a verified checksum from the original source.

What “explicit” means

A download is explicit if and only if the player (or developer, during setup) pressed a labelled Download button while the metadata panel described above was visible. Downloads triggered by:

App startup
Installer scripts
Background update checks
Silent fallbacks when a model is missing

…are not explicit and are not permitted in the Steam edition.

Issue dependency conventions

Steam-roadmap issues are sequenced. A downstream issue that depends on an upstream issue must not be started until the upstream issue is merged and closed. Enforcing this prevents work that assumes a foundation that does not yet exist.

How to express a dependency in an issue

Add a Prerequisites section to the issue body:

## Prerequisites

- Blocked by #NNN — [short description of what that issue delivers]

If an issue has no prerequisites, say so explicitly:

## Prerequisites

None. This is an unblocked issue.

How to express a dependency in a PR

Add a Blocked by line to the PR body if the PR should not be merged until another PR lands:

Blocked by #NNN

GitHub does not natively enforce merge order, so it is the author’s responsibility to check that upstream PRs are merged before asking for a review on a dependent PR.

Milestone assignments

Milestone	Scope
Milestone 1	GitHub MVP polish (screenshots, code signing groundwork, accessibility baseline)
Milestone 2	Packaged desktop alpha (Tauri sidecar, auto-update, real-model CI, voice polish)
Milestone 3	Steam private beta (Steam Deck verification, Steam overlay integration, beta tester program)
Milestone 4	Public free Steam release
Milestone 5	Post-launch (marketplace exploration, community pack browser, analytics opt-in)

Assign every Steam-roadmap issue to one of these milestones. Issues without a milestone are considered unscoped and will be left in triage.

Steam roadmap issue set

The following GitHub issues implement this roadmap in sequence. A downstream issue must not be started until the upstream issue is merged and closed.

Title	Document delivered	Stage dependency
[Steam Roadmap] Add Steam edition roadmap addendum and release principles	docs/STEAM_ROADMAP.md	Stage 1 prerequisite
[Steam Roadmap] Create Steam compliance and risk register for local-AI distribution	publishing/STEAM_COMPLIANCE_AND_RISK_REGISTER.md	Stage 3 prerequisite
[Steam Roadmap] Define Steam MVP scope and release gates	docs/steam-mvp-scope.md	Stage 2 prerequisite
[Steam Roadmap] Add issue templates for Steam QA, platform bugs, and content-pack bugs	docs/steam-triage.md	Stage 3 prerequisite
[Steamworks] Register Steam app, depots, packages, and free-to-play configuration	publishing/STEAM_APP_REGISTRATION.md, `steam/`, `.github/workflows/steam-deploy.yml`	Stage 3 prerequisite (must be complete before first depot submission)
[Publishing] Write Steam publishing docs matching the FeverTilt pattern	publishing/STEAM_STORE_AND_OPERATIONS.md, publishing/STEAM_PUBLISHING_AND_DEPLOYMENT.md, docs/STEAM_INTEGRATION.md, publishing/MACOS_SIGNING_AND_NOTARIZATION.md, publishing/WINDOWS_CODE_SIGNING.md	Stage 3 prerequisite (operational clarity before private beta)
[Marketplace] Design future in-game content marketplace architecture	docs/marketplace-architecture.md	Stage 5 design baseline (post-launch, not launch-blocking)
[Marketplace] Post-launch spike: validate creator marketplace demand and constraints	docs/marketplace-demand-spike.md	Stage 5 decision gate (complete at 90-day mark; required before any implementation issue is opened)

All open and closed issues in this work stream: GitHub — issues with [Steam Roadmap] prefix