multi-agent-mux/FUTURE_WORKS.md

FUTURE_WORKS.md

Purpose: Track future work candidates for the advanced_multi_agent project. For completed items, see DONE.md. Last Updated: 2026-06-21

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Future Improvements Roadmap

Below is the list of pending future work items. These items were proposed based on the security and concurrency analysis in the Understand_Anything_Analysis.md report.

ID	Task	Priority	Effort	Domain / Description	Dependencies
FW-N5	Update job-protocol.md security protocol spec (to HMAC signatures)	P1 (High)	Small (Doc)	Documentation/Design Consistency: Fix the official protocol document which incorrectly guides users to use an insecure plaintext token transmission scheme (data.auth_token), aligning it with the actually implemented HMAC signature scheme.	None (conduct in parallel with FW-N6)
FW-N6	Support auto-generated auth_token and CLI integration in registry.py	P1 (High)	Small~Medium	Activate Security Features: Resolve the bug where all jobs registered via CLI (registry.py register) have auth_token set to null (unauthenticated mode), which bypasses HMAC security. Add the --auth-token argument to the CLI, and automatically generate a token when a secure environment (TLS/Username, etc.) is detected.	None (Highest Priority)
FW-N7	Prevent Replay Attacks via sequence monotonic increase validation in job_subscriber.py	P2 (Medium)	Small~Medium	Security Hardening (Defense in Depth): To prevent cryptographically signed non-terminal events (progress, permission_required) from being intercepted on the network and retransmitted (Replay Attack), add logic to verify that the sequence number (seq) of incoming messages is monotonically increasing.	FW-N6 is a prerequisite (only meaningful after authentication/HMAC is active)
FW-L4	Migrate Job Registry to SQLite to overcome NFS flock limitations	P3 (Low)	Large	Concurrency/Infrastructure Scalability: Similar to the Session Registry, migrate the individual JSON file lock (fcntl.flock) registry structure into an integrated SQLite database transaction structure, guaranteeing full reliability in distributed/network file systems like NFS.	Conditional (commence only when multi-host/NFS deployment is required)

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Detailed Discussion Results & Directions (Reviewer Consensus)

1. Prioritize R2 (FW-N6) to Enable HMAC Security:
   • Although the HMAC signature code (verify/sign) is implemented, registering a job via the normal CLI lacks a way to generate or inject a cryptographic token, forcing jobs into unauthenticated PoC mode. Thus, FW-N6 is the prerequisite for all security improvements.
2. Document Synchronization (FW-N5):
   • Since the current document details an insecure design (plaintext token transmission), it should be updated immediately to prevent development confusion.
3. Scope of Replay Attack Prevention (FW-N7):
   • Implement sequence monotonic check (last_seq tracking) on the receiving side. Pay careful attention to handling subscriber restarts (initializing last_seq) and coordinate this with terminal event duplicate controls.
4. Conditional Deferral of SQLite Integration (FW-L4):
   • Unlike the session registry, maintaining individual job data in JSON files is highly intuitive for management and debugging. Since the current deployment is constrained to a single-host local file system, fcntl.flock locks are sufficient. Thus, this is assigned a low priority (P3) and will be tackled conditionally.