lifecycle_roadmap View

The lifecycle_roadmap view visualizes architectural evolution across time. It projects entities that declare lifecycle phases (Plan, Build, Run, Retire) onto a multi-phase Gantt timeline, organized by architectural layer and tracking entity migrations.

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Visual Projection

Click to explore

Lifecycle Roadmap View showing phased timeline Gantt chart with layer grouping and migrates_to links

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Purpose & Target Audience

• Target Audience: Enterprise Architects, Portfolio Managers, Program Directors, Transformation Leads.
• Primary Use Cases:
  • Visualizing multi-year architecture roadmaps and legacy modernization timelines.
  • Tracking concurrent and sequential lifecycle phases (Plan -> Build -> Run -> Retire).
  • Mapping decommissioning and replacement milestones via migrates_to relationships.
  • Exporting roadmap schedules to CSV for executive reporting and PMO alignment.

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Supported Entity Types & Semantics

Entity Type	Description
system, app, capability, infrastructure, etc.	Any architectural entity with declared lifecycle phases.

Lifecycle Phases Syntax

Entities define ordered or overlapping lifecycle phases with start and optional end dates:

system PaymentsCore "Core Payments Engine" {
    lifecycle {
        phase Plan start "2023-01-01" end "2023-06-30"
        phase Build start "2023-05-01" end "2024-01-15"
        phase Run start "2024-01-15" end "2026-12-31"
        phase Retire start "2026-12-31"
    }
}

• When phases overlap, the roadmap automatically assigns vertical sub-tracks within the entity row.
• The only permitted relationship verb in lifecycle_roadmap views is migrates_to. Other verbs emit compiler warning NEA2013.
• View closure depth is None (intrinsic scope: only matched entities and explicit migrates_to links are rendered).

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Example View Declaration

views {
    lifecycle_roadmap payments_modernization_roadmap "Payments Modernization Roadmap" {
        description "Multi-year transition from legacy mainframe to cloud payments core"
        include PaymentsCore
        include PaymentsCloud
        include_verb migrates_to
    }
}

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Styling Phase Bars (phase.<value>)

Roadmap timeline bars can be styled using dotted selectors prefixed by the authoring keyword phase:

Authored in .ea	Selector	Target Element
phase Plan start "..."	phase.Plan	All Plan phase bars
phase Build start "..."	phase.Build	All Build phase bars
phase Run start "..."	phase.Run	All Run phase bars
phase Retire start "..."	phase.Retire	All Retire phase bars

Applicable Properties

Phase bar style rules support visual bar presentation:

• fill: Bar background fill color (e.g. fill "#06b6d4").
• css_class: External CSS class name for pattern/striping cues.
• custom_css: Inline SVG/HTML CSS declarations.
• label { ... }: Label text styling (including visible, color, font_size, font_weight).

Disallowed Properties

Phase bars reject shape, icon, arrow, and curve_type with a hard compiler error.

Scoping and Cascade Order

1. Theme Preset Defaults: Applied automatically for all four standard lifecycle phases (Plan, Build, Run, Retire).
2. Workspace styles {} Block: Global overrides affecting every lifecycle_roadmap in the workspace.
3. In-View styles {} Block: Overrides scoped strictly to the declaring view.
4. style * Isolation: Wildcard rules (style *) never match or recolor phase bars.

Conditional Styling with where

Predicates evaluate against the owning entity (app, system, capability):

views {
    lifecycle_roadmap payments_modernization_roadmap "Payments Modernization Roadmap" {
        include system

        # Highlight Retire phases for high-criticality systems
        style phase.Retire where criticality == "High" {
            fill "#dc2626"
            css_class "retire-critical"
        }

        # Custom styling for platform-owned Run phases
        style phase.Run where owner == "Platform Team" {
            fill "#059669"
        }
    }
}

• Open-Ended Cap: When a phase has no end date, its open-ended arrow cap automatically inherits the bar's resolved style.
• Dynamic Legend: The view legend reflects resolved colors after cascade resolution and omits phases absent from the view.