Status and direction

plcopen separates current facts, near-term commitments, and long-term direction so that an aspiration is never mistaken for a shipped capability.

The four entry documents

Document	Answers	Update rhythm
STATUS.md	What works now?	At the close of each delivery batch
ROADMAP.md	What is currently committed?	With milestone changes
VISION.md	What is the 3–5 year direction?	Annual review
CONTEXT.md	What do project terms mean?	When shared language changes

If these documents appear to conflict, current facts beat commitments, and commitments beat long-term aspirations.

Current public baseline

The latest published user baseline is documented in the v0.21.0 release record. It covers the C++ source / header-only package, pyplcopen, the IEC 61131-3 ST runtime, verification evidence, and declared limits.

That public v0.21.0 state does not imply every downstream registry moved in lockstep. ConanCenter and vcpkg central registry assets remain fixed at the published v0.20.0 line, even though the v0.21.0 GitHub tag/Release and PyPI package are public.

For facts newer than that release, use the canonical project status. Do not infer a release from a branch name, a merged change, or a passing CI run; tag, package registry, and GitHub Release are separate public states.

Planning and history

• Active strategy and execution plans live in doc/planning/.
• Historical plans and completed evidence packages live in doc/archive/.
• Archived vision material is explicitly non-current and lives in doc/vision/.