# How this manual talks about the future

This manual describes a capability with one of four words and nothing else. Available means running now. Foundation means the code exists and what you can use is narrower. Not yet means designed and not built. Reference means background about a technology. None of the four carries a date, an order of work, or a promise that anything unbuilt is going to be built.

- **Status:** Available
- **Audience:** both
- **Last verified:** 2026-09-10
- **Canonical:** https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/product/roadmap-language/

## The four words

| Word | What it promises | What it does not promise |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Running in production today and reachable by both audiences, with a named module or setting as the evidence. | That it suits your situation, or that your plan's allowance lets you use as much of it as you want. |
| Foundation | That the model, service and tests exist, and that part of the behaviour is genuinely there. | That you can use the whole of it. A page carrying this word has to say exactly what is narrower. |
| Not yet | That the thing has been designed and written down, so the description is not invention. | That work is under way, that anybody is assigned to it, or that it is going to exist at all. |
| Reference | That the page explains a technology or standard accurately. | That Connect implements it. A reference page must separately answer whether Connect uses the thing. |

There is one qualifier rather than a fifth word: **Available (operator)** marks the handful of surfaces that exist for administering the platform itself — verifying payments, JBRH's own pricing, enquiries sent to JBRH. It is the same word with a note about who it is for, not a lower grade.

## What none of them promise

- **A date.** No page here gives one for anything unbuilt, because a date given without a commitment behind it is a guess dressed as a plan.
- **An order.** Nothing implies that the things marked Not yet are queued, ranked, or being considered against each other.
- **A commitment.** The word describes the state of the code on the date beside it. It is not an undertaking to anybody.
- **A hint from silence.** A capability that appears nowhere in this manual is not thereby forthcoming. It is simply not documented, which usually means it does not exist.

That restraint costs the manual something. A reader who wants to know whether a limit is temporary does not find out here. The alternative — a roadmap page that ages badly and quietly becomes a list of things somebody once intended — is worse, because it is read as a promise long after everyone who wrote it has stopped believing it.

## Vocabulary the build refuses

The refusal is mechanical rather than editorial. A page containing any of these fails the documentation gate and is not published:

```text
coming soon
TODO
TBD
placeholder
will soon support
is able to (as a future tense)
revolutionize / revolutionise
cutting-edge / state-of-the-art
world-class / best-in-class
game-changing
seamless integration
```

The first four are the ones that matter for this page. Each of them is a way of writing about the future without saying anything checkable, and each has the same effect on a reader: it converts an absence into an expectation. The status vocabulary exists so that an absence can be stated plainly and still be informative.

## How a word changes

A word changes when the running system changes. The register is generated from one source, so the page you are reading and the JSON a machine reads cannot drift apart: both are produced by the same build, from the same entries, on the same date.

Four entries carry Foundation for a provider reason rather than an engineering one — call recording, the completed transfer, SMS sending and India's DLT register. If the provider capability behind one of those is enabled, the register changes and so does every page that names it. Nothing about that is scheduled here, and nothing about it is hidden either.

## Reading a page that hedges

Some sentences hedge for a good reason, and the hedge is the information. "Provider-dependent" means the capability exists in Connect and the answer for you depends on who carries your traffic. "Not enabled on the live carrier" is narrower still: it is a fact about one account, and it is stated that way rather than generalised.

Where a page needs a number it takes it from a measurement rather than an estimate, and where no measurement exists the sentence is written without the number. A sentence in this manual that softens a guess with "typically" is a defect; the rule is to omit the claim instead.

## If you need a commitment

This manual is not where one lives. It describes what the software does on the date beside each page. Anything contractual — what is billed, what is supported, what is retained, what is not certified — is set out in the [Trust Centre](/trust), which is equally plain about the things that are goals rather than guarantees. If a capability matters enough to buy on, ask about it before purchasing rather than after.

## Questions

### Does Not yet mean something is on a roadmap?

No. It means the thing has been designed and written down and does not exist in the running system. It says nothing about whether anyone intends to build it, and this manual deliberately does not say.

### Why is there no roadmap page here at all?

Because the honest content of one would be a list of things that might happen, and readers treat such lists as commitments. The status register does the useful half of the job — telling you exactly what is real today — without the half that misleads.

### Something I need is marked Foundation. What should I do?

Read the page's own statement of what is narrower; it will name the specific limit, usually a provider capability. Then decide against today's behaviour rather than against an expectation, and raise it with JBRH before buying if it is decisive.

## Related

- [Capability status](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/product/status/)
- [Current limits](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/product/limits/)
- [A four-word vocabulary for capability status](https://connectbyjbrh.com/research/status-vocabulary/)
- [Versions and what changed](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/product/versions/)
- [Accessibility](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/product/accessibility-statement/)

## What this page is based on

- `docs-source/facts.py` STATUS — the five values and their meanings
- `docs-source/schema.py` BANNED_PHRASES — what the gate refuses
- `docs-source/WORKER-BRIEF.md` §4 — the status vocabulary rule
- `webapp/trust/index.html` — what is contractual and what is a goal