OpenADS — M4 ADT + Memo + VFP + AES Implementation Plan

For agentic workers: REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use superpowers:subagent-driven-development (recommended) or superpowers:executing-plans to implement this plan task-by-task.

Goal: Complete the data-format surface: read+write ADT (ADS native) tables with extended types (autoinc, modtime, GUID, timestamp, NULL bitmap), DBT/FPT/ADM memo stores, VFP-typed DBF, and AES-128/256 record encryption. End-to-end test: an L1 sequence creates an ADT with a memo field, writes records (some encrypted), reads them back, opens a VFP DBF, and round-trips memos through DBT and FPT.

Architecture: Three new format drivers (AdtDriver, VfpDriver) plus three memo backends (DbtMemo, FptMemo, AdmMemo). The driver trait grows a memo_store() accessor; field decoding routes memo references through it. engine::Encryption wraps an IBlockCipher and applies record-level AES at the driver boundary. AES is vendored as tinyaes (single-header, MIT). 14 new ACE entry points cover memo + encryption + autoinc.

Tech Stack: Same — adds third_party/tinyaes vendored.

Scope cuts

To stay shippable in one session:

  • ADT format: header + descriptors + records + extended types (autoinc, modtime, timestamp, NULL bitmap). Compaction / record locks specific to ADT use shared engine logic.
  • ADM memo: read+write basic (block alloc + chain). Real ADS-proprietary block packing follows Harbour dbffpt patterns where they overlap.
  • FPT/DBT memo: full, both endians.
  • VFP driver: DBF 0x30/0x31 read+write, autoinc field, _NullFlags system field for NULL bitmap.
  • AES: ECB-mode AES-128/256 record encryption (mirrors ADS legacy). Tinyaes vendored as MIT.
  • Out: AES-CBC, full ADM proprietary edge cases, ADT compaction, AdsRestructureTable.

(Detailed task breakdown identical in shape to M3 plan; execution will inline-write tests + impls in a TDD red→green→commit cadence.)

Tasks

  1. Vendor tinyaes (third_party/tinyaes/) and add CMake hookup.
  2. engine::Aes C++ wrapper with encrypt_block / decrypt_block over AES-128 + AES-256.
  3. MemoStore trait + DbtMemo (dBase III).
  4. FptMemo (FoxPro / VFP).
  5. AdmMemo (ADS).
  6. Memo wiring into IDriver + Table (read_field follows memo blocks for M-fields).
  7. ADT format — header + field descriptors + record reader/writer.
  8. VFP driver (DBF 0x30/0x31 + extras).
  9. Encryption boundary: wrap raw record buffers when table flag set.
  10. ABI thunks (memo + encryption + autoinc + binary).
  11. End-to-end smoke (abi_m4_smoke_test.cpp).
  12. README + tag.

(Tasks intentionally compact — code is written inline against the FoxPro/Clipper specs and Harbour src/rdd/dbffpt, src/rdd/dbfntx, src/rdd/dbfcdx references.)