Part 4: The Agentic Vision - Roadmaps and RLM

The Story So Far: It is Monday afternoon. In Part 3, we looked at the SQLite plumbing. It is fast, it is local, and it does not hallucinate.

January 26, 2026. 5:26 PM. We built the context engine. We proved it works. Now, where do we take it? From a chat box to a workspace manager.

The 7-Phase Roadmap

When I started Turtlez, I did not just want a chat bot. I wanted a developer partner that could live inside a repository and never lose its mind.

To get there, we laid out a 7-phase roadmap. We have already knocked out the first four:

1. Phase 1: Core Backend (SQLite, Context Store)
2. Phase 2: RLM Engine (Recursive logic, tools)
3. Phase 3: Real-time API (SSE streaming for the UI)
4. Phase 4: The Inspector (A Next.js 16 interface to see the reasoning traces)

We are officially in the "Agentic" territory now. The next steps are where the recursion starts to pay off.

Phase 5: Giving the Agent Hands

Right now, Turtlez can think about your code, but it cannot touch it.

Phase 5 introduces Agentic Coding Tools. We are talking about a Shell REPL and direct File System access. Because Turtlez handles context recursively, the agent can "read" a 10,000-line file by selectively searching for the parts it needs, rather than trying to cram the whole file into a prompt and failing.

The Master of the Workspace

The end game is Autonomous Workspace Management and Collaborative Multi-Agent Loops.

Imagine a fleet of agents, each using their own RLM context, collaborating on a single feature. One agent handles the database migration, another writes the API route, and a third updates the frontend. Because they share a Context Store (or can search each other's memories), they stay in sync without needing a massive "shared prompt" that exceeds token limits.

By solving the recursion problem first, we are building the foundation for an Autonomous Operating System for software development. One where the agent does not just follow instructions, it maintains its own state across every turn of the build.

Metrics:

• Roadmap Progress: Phase 4/7 Complete
• Recursive Depth: Tested up to 15 layers
• System Integrity: 100% (passed all regression tests)

Commit References:

• a93b701 - Vision and 7-Phase Roadmap implementation

Related Files/Code:

• rlm-chat/src/app/chat/page.tsx - The Phase 4 Chat Interface
• .kiro/specs/rlm-chat-system/tasks.md - Phase 5-7 tracking
• Commit a93b701

Coming Next: In our final post, Part 5: Reflections, we’ll look at:

• The Zero-Context Discipline: What amnesia taught me about build architecture
• The meta-experience: Building a recursive engine with an AI that kept trying to forget the rules

This is Part 4 of the Turtlez series.