bvandeusen
0bfd51a149
Two improvements to the system playlist builder: 1. Per-artist (<=3) and per-album (<=2) caps applied to the pickTopN truncation step, using the same numeric caps Discover already enforces. Both For-You and Songs-like-X benefit. Same skewed candidate pool no longer collapses to "10 tracks from the same artist" — the playlist always carries at least 9 distinct artists in 25 slots. 2. New pickHeadAndTail function for For-You: 20 top-similarity tracks + 5 sampled from the tail (positions 2*headN onward of the score-sorted, cap-applied pool). Tail sampling uses tieBreakHash for daily determinism — same user same day still sees the same playlist, but the daily refresh feels less stuck-in-a-rut. Tail tracks are still similarity-related (they passed the similarity candidate filter) so the user should enjoy them, just from artists they wouldn't have surfaced via strict top-N ranking. Songs-like-X keeps the simple pickTopN call — the seed-artist context already provides the "you'll like this" framing without needing a tail injection. Refactors pickTopN internals: now sorts candidates first via scoreAndSortCandidates, applies the cap on []Candidate via capCandidatesByAlbumAndArtist, and truncates. Removes the now- dead stableSortByScoreThenHash helper (only used in old pickTopN). The cap helper mirrors capByAlbumAndArtist in discover.go but operates on recommendation.Candidate so it sees Track.AlbumID / Track.ArtistID directly. Tests cover the cap helper truth table, head+tail split with small/large pools, buffer-zone exclusion, daily determinism, and cross-day tail variance. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Minstrel
A self-hosted music server that thinks for you. Smart shuffle, contextual likes, ListenBrainz-aware radio, and Lidarr automation — server-side, so every client (web, mobile, Subsonic third-party) gets the same intelligence.
State and intelligence belong on the server, not the client.
Highlights
- OpenSubsonic-compatible. Existing Subsonic clients (DSub, Symfonium, play:Sub, etc.) connect with no special configuration.
- Server-side smart shuffle. Track-similarity vectors, dual-like model (general + contextual), and session memory keep mixes coherent across devices.
- ListenBrainz radio. Session-aware "more like this" pulls from ListenBrainz similarity data, not a static genre tag.
- Lidarr integration. Triggered scans, request-driven album imports, and a quarantine flow when something doesn't fit.
- Built-in web SPA. Full-feature library, search, queue, playlists, and admin — no separate frontend container to deploy.
- Flutter mobile client in flight. Tracking issue #356.
Quickstart
# compose.yaml
services:
minstrel:
image: git.fabledsword.com/bvandeusen/minstrel:v1.0.0
ports: ['4533:4533']
volumes:
- ./music:/music:ro
- minstrel-data:/data
environment:
MINSTREL_DATABASE_URL: postgres://minstrel:minstrel@db:5432/minstrel?sslmode=disable
MINSTREL_LIBRARY_SCAN_PATHS: /music
depends_on: [db]
db:
image: postgres:17
environment:
POSTGRES_USER: minstrel
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: minstrel
POSTGRES_DB: minstrel
volumes: [pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data]
volumes:
minstrel-data:
pgdata:
docker compose up -d
Watch docker compose logs minstrel on first start — a one-time admin password is printed to stderr. Sign in at http://localhost:4533 with username admin and that password, then change it under Settings.
For the full configuration surface, see config.example.yaml.
Configuration
Most operators only need the env vars in the quickstart above. A few extras worth knowing:
MINSTREL_BRANDING_APP_NAME— rename the instance ("Family Jukebox", "Office Music"). Surfaces in the header, browser tab, and OG share previews.MINSTREL_STORAGE_DATA_DIR— defaults to./data. Holds playlist cover collages and other generated artefacts.MINSTREL_LIBRARY_SCAN_PATHS— colon-separated list of music library roots to scan. Supports multiple roots (/music:/podcasts).MINSTREL_AUTH_ADMIN_USERNAME/MINSTREL_AUTH_ADMIN_PASSWORD— bootstrap admin credentials. Username defaults toadmin; leave the password unset to have the server generate one and print it to stderr on first start.
ListenBrainz integration (per-user scrobble + similarity tokens) and Lidarr integration (URL + API key) are configured through the admin Settings UI rather than env vars or yaml — per Minstrel's "config in UI" rule, integration settings live where operators can edit them without restarting.
Most operational keys have a MINSTREL_<SECTION>_<FIELD> env override. Recommendation and events tuning are yaml-only. See config.example.yaml for the authoritative surface.
Updating
:main— rolling, follows the dev branch's tested tip. Recommended only for the operator who's running an upstream-watching deployment.:v1.0.x— pinned releases. Recommended default. Database migrations run automatically at startup; rollbacks require restoring a Postgres dump.
Specs
Authoritative scope lives under docs/:
- Server spec — current implementation focus.
- Client spec — Flutter companion app.
Development
Two concurrent dev processes:
- Backend:
docker compose up— Postgres + Minstrel on:4533. - Frontend:
cd web && npm install && npm run dev— Vite dev server on:5173with HMR. The Vite server proxies/api/*and/rest/*to:4533so session cookies work.
Production build
docker build -t minstrel . runs the SvelteKit build inside a node stage, copies the output into the golang stage, and //go:embeds it into the final binary. The container serves the SPA from / alongside the API surfaces; no separate static-file server is required.
Branches
- Day-to-day work happens on
dev(or feature branches merged intodev). mainis protected — changes land via PR fromdev.- Releases are cut by tagging
v*offmain; the release workflow builds and pushes the container image to the Forgejo registry.
Task and milestone tracking: Fable (Minstrel project, id 12).
License
See LICENSE.