Roadmap — What’s Next for QKDpy

Last updated: 2026-07-18

QKDpy today is a research and educational simulator of Quantum Key Distribution. It lets you model protocols, channels, satellite links, and attacks with phenomenological approximations, and it ships the full open-source core plus enterprise/compliance and quantum-safe migration add-ons.

This page describes the developer’s near- and medium-term plans for the project — what capabilities are intended next, and how the library is expected to mature. It is a statement of direction, not a commitment on dates or on any specific release.

Themes we’re investing in

  1. Higher-fidelity physics. Moving from approximate channel models toward per-pulse photon statistics, regime-aware atmospheric turbulence, and reference-scenario validation against published experimental key rates.

  2. Stronger security reasoning. Composable, finite-key security statements for decoy-state and device-independent protocols, so a result can report an explicit security margin instead of a single QBER threshold.

  3. Closer to real hardware. The ability to feed real detector counts and real error-correction matrices into the simulator, and to interoperate with external key-management interfaces.

  4. Operability at scale. Topology-aware multi-node networks, stochastic (not just mean-field) loss, and scheduling that can answer end-to-end key-rate questions under realistic conditions.

  5. Lifecycle hardening. Secrets handling that keeps key material in an HSM-backed lifecycle, plus tamper-evident audit trails and verifiable compliance exports.

How we sequence the work

The developer plans to advance the work in phases rather than all at once:

  • Phase 1 — Core fidelity. Better decoy-state analysis and error-correction backends.

  • Phase 2 — Realistic channels. Photon-number-resolving detectors and atmospheric realism.

  • Phase 3 — Hardware hooks. Ingesting real detector and codec data, plus key-management interoperability.

  • Phase 4 — Network scale. Topology-aware routing and scheduling under stochastic loss.

  • Phase 5 — Lifecycle & enforcement. HSM-backed secrets, anchored audit logs, and license enforcement.

Each phase is treated as its own release train, and the project’s Status & Scope stance is only ever widened deliberately — never by quietly implying production-readiness.

What QKDpy is not claiming

Even as it matures, QKDpy is not positioned as a certified cryptographic module. It does not replace a certified HSM, it does not generate or protect production key material on its own, and its compliance templates support engineering reasoning rather than substituting for an auditor’s sign-off.

For the current maturity level and the precise list of what is and is not in scope, see the Status & Scope section of the README.