Ashvault

Ashvault is a first-person VR/Flatscreen dungeon crawler design project about vertical exploration, recoverable risk, closed-loop economy, systemic knowledge, physical crafting, and emergent progression.

Ashvault is solo developed.

This repository currently contains the production documentation and GDD set for the project. The documents are organized to separate product governance, phase scope, domain rules, and implementation planning.

Start Here

Document	Purpose
Ashvault Product Hub	Macro identity, canonical index, plugin ownership, and module boundaries
Roadmap Content Scope	Sovereign source for phase scope, gates, cuts, and MVP/Alpha/Beta entry
MVP Implementation Plan	Executable milestone plan for the MVP
M0 Core Contracts Backlog	First technical backlog: IDs, events, registry, save envelope, telemetry schema
Production Tech Contracts	Shared runtime contracts, event bus, tick order, validators, and boundaries

Authority Model

The documentation follows a strict authority hierarchy:

1. Roadmap Content Scope is sovereign for phase, scope, gates, cuts, and feature entry into MVP/Alpha/Beta.
2. Ashvault Product Hub is sovereign for macro identity, canonical index, plugin ownership, and module boundaries.
3. Domain GDDs are sovereign for internal rules, formulas, data, edge cases, and acceptance criteria within their allowed phase.
4. If a domain GDD contradicts the Roadmap on phase scope, the Roadmap wins.
5. If a domain GDD contradicts the Product Hub on plugin boundaries, the conflict must be resolved before implementation.

MVP Loop

The launch MVP is scoped to prove a closed loop:

Hub -> Run -> Dungeon 3-5 floors -> Mining/Combat/Carry/Notes -> Extraction/Death -> Economy/Upgrade -> Boss Gate

MVP content target:

• 1 biome: mine.
• 3-5 dungeon floors.
• 1 boss gate.
• Mining, combat, inventory, economy, run loop, basic shop.
• Minimal notes and bestiary.
• Recoverable corpse loop.
• VR and flatscreen functional parity.

MVP Milestones

Milestone	Goal
M0 - Core Contracts + Runtime Shell	IDs, EventBus, definitions, tick order, save envelope, telemetry schema
M1 - Run + Dungeon Floor Skeleton	Run start, weekly seed, generated floor, spawn, extraction placeholder, anchors
M2 - Interaction + Inventory + Mining	Interaction contract, pickup/carry, mining node, item origin
M3 - Extraction + Economy + Hub Shop	Valid extraction, selling, shop counter, stash, market delta
M4 - Combat + Noise + 2 Enemies	Damage, stamina, stagger, NoiseAuthority MVP, enemy alert/investigate/attack
M5 - Corpse + Save/Load + Legacy Run	Death, corpse recovery, crash recovery, legacy run policy
M6 - Boss Gate MVP	1 boss, eligibility, LayerLockValidator, idempotent reward
M7 - QA/Fairness/Telemetry	100 seeds, event schemas, VR/Flat checks, run summary, death causes

Plugin Boundary Rules

Ashvault should be implemented as modular systems/plugins with explicit coupling:

• Plugins do not read internal state from other plugins.
• Integrations go through contracts, events, DTOs, stable IDs, snapshots, versioned data assets, or public interfaces.
• Feature plugins cannot require Alpha/Beta/P&D systems for the MVP.
• Persisted events must include schema/version and have an explicit parser or migrator.
• Dungeon Generator never instantiates final economic items. It emits anchors, tags, constraints, and context; Loot/Reward resolves item instances, origin, rarity, quality, and value.

P&D Rule

Systems marked as P&D may exist in isolated prototypes, experimental branches, or technical scenes, but they cannot:

• block the MVP;
• be required for boss, run, economy, or tutorial;
• create mandatory dependencies in earlier-phase GDDs;
• write to permanent production saves without a feature gate.

Examples include Arcane Magic, GOAP/HTN, MORL, advanced Hive behavior, and deep NPC social simulation.

Repository Layout

documentation/
  GDD/
    Ashvault v1.6.md
    AI/
    Design/
    Dungeon/
    Gameplay/
    Lore/
    Production/
    Technical/
    UX/

Current Production Entry Point

Implementation should start with:

M0 - Core Contracts + Runtime Shell

See M0 Core Contracts Backlog for the first executable backlog.