SR Quantum Backend Bench

Roadmap

This roadmap tracks planned work for quantum-backend-bench. The project is centered on local quantum SDK comparison, translation, and semantic verification. Completed work and release history belong in CHANGELOG.md.

Translation and Interop Priorities

  • Broaden the portable OpenQASM 3 subset and make target-specific annotation gaps explicit, while keeping neutral local noise channels distinct from SDK-specific or provider-calibrated noise semantics.
  • Improve static SDK source importers for common Qiskit QuantumCircuit, Cirq construction and measurement-key, PennyLane QNode/tape, and Braket Circuit result-type patterns.
  • Keep translation conservative: reject unsupported dynamic Python constructs with structured diagnostics instead of producing approximate rewrites.
  • Add small density-matrix comparisons for neutral noisy channels to strengthen verification beyond canonical, statevector, distribution, expectation-value, and result-schema checks.
  • Grow the accepted and rejected translation corpus with real-world snippets, expected diagnostics, verification reports, and per-SDK coverage artifacts.
  • Add scheduled optional-SDK compatibility runs and continue reviewing tested version bands as upstream SDKs evolve.

Scope Guardrails

  • Keep the core centered on free, local SDK comparison, translation, and verification.
  • Prefer deeper support for Qiskit Aer, Cirq, PennyLane, and Braket LocalSimulator before adding another SDK target.
  • Consider another local SDK only when it supports the same neutral contract and verification model. Keep CUDA-Q platform-optional and pyQuil optional because it requires local QVM/quilc runtimes.
  • Add a benchmark family only when it directly strengthens SDK parity, translation validation, or a reproducible semantic audit.

Non-Goals

  • Arbitrary Python program migration.
  • Cloud job submission, provider credentials, billing workflows, or queue benchmarking.
  • Quantum hardware performance or certification claims.
  • Broad simulator speed rankings without captured environment metadata and explicit adapter caveats.
  • General quantum algorithm benchmark expansion unrelated to SDK comparison or translation verification.