iron/docs/product.md

Product

Iron is a self-hosted personal cloud drive gateway. The product goal is to give one person a familiar browser drive experience while keeping storage placement, repair, and metadata ownership under their control.

Current Stage

Iron is a Product MVP Candidate.

Implemented:

• local authentication and browser login
• file browser with folders, search, sort, pagination, and an inspector panel
• create folder, upload, rename, move, delete, restore, download, and image preview
• uploads, recycle bin, storage, and jobs pages
• local backend persistence
• S3 runtime replication and remote fallback reads
• placement policies and reconcile jobs
• metadata export, validate, integrity, restore-plan, and guarded import
• Python Playwright E2E coverage for the core browser flow

Still needs hardening before a polished release:

• better browser session and bootstrap credential UX
• deeper PDF/video preview coverage
• richer preview derivative generation
• stronger post-restore and repair visibility
• mobile and narrow-screen refinement

MVP Cutline

A first usable MVP should let one person:

• deploy a single gateway node
• log in from a browser
• browse, upload, preview, download, rename, move, delete, and restore files
• use local storage and at least one remote backend
• inspect backend health and failed work
• export and validate metadata for recovery

Not required for the first MVP:

• desktop sync client
• mobile native app
• public share links
• full-text search
• cross-file deduplication
• erasure coding
• advanced media indexing

Roadmap

Near-term:

• harden Web UI flows with Playwright-backed regression
• improve session management and onboarding
• expand PDF/video preview tests
• improve upload targeting and progress feedback
• refine storage and jobs pages around real user tasks

Later:

• Aliyun and Baidu adapters
• richer cache policy
• share links
• desktop and mobile clients
• stronger media workflows
• advanced repair orchestration