ROADMAP.md

ic-py Maintenance & Development Roadmap

Guiding Principles:

• Fix all known security vulnerabilities in ic-py
• Modernize and complete the Candid type system
• Maintain feature-and-schedule alignment with agent-rs long-term

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Milestone 1

• Endpoint upgrade

  • Issue: ic-py is still pointing at legacy endpoints and needs to switch to v3
  • References:
    • Reducing end-to-end latencies on the Internet Computer
    • Boundary Node Roadmap (latest v3 endpoints)
  • Solution: Update ic-py’s default endpoints to the latest BN v3 addresses and maintain them as the roadmap evolves

• Timeouts & error classification

  • Issues: Missing timeouts on agent calls; lack of fine-grained error categories for canister responses (e.g. exhausted cycles, missing WASM)
  • References: #117 • #115
  • Solution:
    1. Implement configurable timeouts on all agent calls
    2. Introduce structured error types for common canister-level failures

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Milestone 2

• IC certificate verification
  • Issue: request_status_raw and request_status_raw_async do not verify certificates, allowing a malicious node to tamper with update responses
  • References:
    • DFINITY forum: Unmaintained IC agents containing vulnerabilities
    • GitHub issue #109
    • PR #56 • issue #76
  • Solution:
    1. Mirror agent-rs’s certificate-checking logic (see agent-rs implementation)
    2. Resolve Python–BLS compatibility by invoking the Rust BLS crate via FFI or another bridging approach

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Milestone 3

• Candid type-system enhancements
  • Issue: Missing support for the latest Candid features (e.g. composite queries, new primitives)
  • References:
    • #111 • PR #112 • #63
    • Latest Candid spec
  • Solution:
    1. Update ic-py’s Candid parser/generator with all missing types per the official spec
    2. Add a test suite to validate correctness against the canonical Candid reference

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Milestone 4

• Dynamic HTTP provider & routing

  • Implement latency-based, adaptive routing between boundary nodes
  • Support more flexible selection of endpoints at runtime

• Expanded API surface

  • High-level wrappers for ICRC-compliant ledgers (ckBTC, ckETH, ckUSDc, etc.)
  • Out-of-the-box helpers for interacting with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other canisters

• Ongoing alignment & optimization

  • Keep pace with agent-rs’s feature roadmap
  • Targeted performance tuning, stricter type checks
  • Define additional milestones once Milestones 1–3 are complete

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Other long-standing bugs

• Precision of returned data
  • Issue #107 – floating-point vs. integer handling