Home screen is the first surface on app open; without a local cache
the cold-start blocks on /api/home, which dominates felt latency on
slow or remote connections. This commit caches the last successful
HomeData as a single-row JSON blob in drift, so subsequent app opens
yield content immediately and revalidate in the background.
Schema:
- New CachedHomeSnapshot table (single row: id=1, json TEXT,
updated_at). schemaVersion bumped 2 → 3 with a forward migration
that calls m.createTable(cachedHomeSnapshot). Codegen regenerated
via build_runner; the *.g.dart files are gitignored and rebuilt
by the CI Codegen step.
Provider rewrite:
- homeProvider: FutureProvider<HomeData> → StreamProvider<HomeData>
using the existing cacheFirst<CachedHomeSnapshotData, HomeData>
pattern (alwaysRefresh: true for SWR). On cold cache the first
/api/home fetch populates the row. On warm cache the cached
HomeData is yielded immediately and a background REST fetch
overwrites the row, which drift's watch() picks up.
- Encoder helpers (_albumToJson / _artistToJson / _trackToJson) so
HomeData survives the JSON round-trip into and out of drift.
Field names match the server's /api/home wire shape exactly so
HomeData.fromJson handles both fresh server responses and cached
drift rows.
Callers untouched: home_screen.dart's ref.watch + ref.refresh +
metadata_prefetcher's ref.listen all keep working with the
StreamProvider shape (AsyncValue<HomeData> stays the surface type).
Test fix: 4 homeProvider.overrideWith sites in home_screen_test.dart
switched from `(ref) async => _emptyHome` (FutureProvider form) to
`(ref) => Stream.value(_emptyHome)` (StreamProvider form).
For #357. Completes the user-visible deferred follow-up. Remaining
deferred items: library_changes server-side retention.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <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:latest
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
After the stack is up, visit http://localhost:4533/register and create your admin account. The first user to register on a fresh instance is automatically marked as the administrator; subsequent users can register through the same form (or via invite tokens generated from the admin Users panel, depending on how you configure registration).
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).
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.