bvandeusen
24d330424f
Track identity was file_path, so a file that came back renamed or in a different directory looked like a deletion plus an unrelated new track: the old row kept the like and every play_event while a fresh zero-history row appeared, and nothing connected them. A liked song read as unliked, its play count reset, and Rediscover could offer it as a discovery — silently. Renumbering an album was enough, which is what happened to the operator's copy of Minutes to Midnight. Adoption re-points the existing row's file_path at the new location and clears its missing mark. The normal UpsertTrack then conflicts on file_path and updates THAT row, so the track id survives and likes, plays and playlist memberships travel with it — and clients see an update rather than a delete-and-create, so no cache churn either. Matching is MBID first (identifies the recording, so it survives a re-encode), then file_size + duration_ms for untagged files. Both fingerprint components must be non-zero: duration_ms is 0 when ffprobe failed, and matching 0 against 0 would pair up unrelated broken files. Only rows already marked missing are eligible — a row whose file is present elsewhere is a duplicate, not a move, and re-pointing it would corrupt the copy that still exists. An ambiguous match inserts fresh rather than adopting one arbitrarily: a fork is recoverable later, a wrong merge isn't. Scan is now three phases, and the order is the point. Adoption can only claim a row that is ALREADY marked missing, but reconcile previously ran after processing — so a rename performed while the server was down surfaced the deletion and the addition in the same scan, the new path inserted first, and the fork became permanent. Enumeration is therefore separated from processing so reconcile can run between them: walk (paths only, no tag reads or probes) -> reconcile -> process in walk order. Consequence worth knowing: when reconcile refuses (an absent root, or a reorganisation exceeding the 25% mark cap) adoption cannot fire and renamed files fork as before. That's the pre-#2528 behaviour rather than a new failure, and the warning now names it. The old outer walk-error branch was unreachable — the callback always returned nil, so WalkDir never surfaced an error — and verifyRootsPresent is the real protection, so enumerate counts walk errors instead of pretending to abort on them.
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 — against a Lidarr instance you run and configure. Optional, and off until you supply a URL and API key.
- Built-in web SPA. Full-feature library, search, queue, playlists, and admin — no separate frontend container to deploy.
- Native Android client, shipped with the server. The signed APK is bundled into every image and attached to each release — sideload it once, then the app self-updates straight from your own server (no app store, no separate download to track).
Scope and responsible use
Minstrel serves music you already have. It is a library server: it indexes files on disk you point it at, and streams them to your own clients. It does not source, search for, or acquire content, and it has no opinion about where your files came from.
Concretely, Minstrel ships no indexers, no trackers, no torrent / Usenet / NZB client, and no DRM circumvention of any kind. There is nothing to point at a content source because Minstrel has no such subsystem.
The Lidarr integration is optional and inert until you configure it. You supply the URL and API key of a Lidarr instance you are already running; Minstrel then calls that instance's API to trigger scans, submit album requests, and reconcile imports. Minstrel neither bundles nor installs Lidarr, and configures no indexers on your behalf — Lidarr ships with none either, and any it uses are ones you added yourself.
What you put in your library, and what sources you configure in your own Lidarr, are your responsibility. Copyright law applies to your collection the same way it applies to any other software that plays a file. Please respect it, and respect the terms of any service you connect.
Minstrel is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lidarr, ListenBrainz, MusicBrainz, or Subsonic.
Quickstart
# compose.yaml
services:
minstrel:
image: git.fabledsword.com/bvandeusen/minstrel:latest
ports: ['4533:4533']
volumes:
# Your music library. Point ./music at wherever your audio files
# live. Mounted read-only — Minstrel never writes to your library.
- ./music:/music:ro
# Generated data: playlist cover collages, artist art, caches.
# The path must match MINSTREL_STORAGE_DATA_DIR, which the image
# sets to /app/data — keep this mount on /app/data or your cache
# won't survive a container recreate.
- minstrel-data:/app/data
environment:
MINSTREL_DATABASE_URL: postgres://minstrel:minstrel@db:5432/minstrel?sslmode=disable
# Colon-separated library roots to scan; must match the container
# path of the read-only music mount above (/music here).
MINSTREL_LIBRARY_SCAN_PATHS: /music
depends_on: [db]
db:
image: postgres:17
environment:
POSTGRES_USER: minstrel
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: minstrel
POSTGRES_DB: minstrel
# Postgres data dir — users, likes, play history, sessions, settings.
# The one volume you must never lose; back it up with pg_dump.
volumes: [pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data]
volumes:
minstrel-data:
pgdata:
docker compose up -d
First run
With the stack up, a handful of in-app steps get you to a working library. Use your own host in place of localhost if you're reaching the server over a LAN/VPN address (plain http:// is fine — no TLS required).
1. Create your admin account. Visit http://localhost:4533/register. The first account on a fresh instance is automatically the administrator; later users join through the same form or an invite token (step 5).
2. Let the first library scan finish. scan_on_startup is on by default, so Minstrel walks your mounted library on boot and imports artists, albums, and tracks — no button to press. Watch progress (and re-scan any time) on the Admin page (/admin); the scan runs in stages and is incremental, so later restarts only pick up what changed.
3. (Optional) Name the instance and wire up integrations. In admin Settings → Integrations (/admin/integrations), add a ListenBrainz token (scrobbling + similarity radio) and/or a Lidarr URL + API key (the request flow). These live in the UI and apply without a restart; the display name can also be set via MINSTREL_BRANDING_APP_NAME.
4. Install the Android app. Open Settings (/settings) and use the Install the Android app card to download the APK that ships inside this server image, then sign in with the same account. From then on the app self-updates straight from your server.
5. Invite the rest of the household. From admin Users (/admin/users), generate an invite token (or enable open registration). Each person gets their own account, so likes, play history, and recommendations stay per-user.
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— where generated artefacts (playlist cover collages, artist art, caches) are written. The container image sets this to/app/data, which is why the quickstart mounts theminstrel-datavolume there.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
Image tags (git.fabledsword.com/bvandeusen/minstrel:<tag>):
:latest— the newest blessed image. Moves on everymainpush and every release. Recommended for most operators.:vYYYY.MM.DD— immutable per-day release tags. Pin one of these for a deployment you don't want moving under you. (Per-day CalVer — no trailing patch digit; a same-day re-cut moves the tag forward.):main— the rolling post-merge tip. Same image as:latestat push time; choose it if you want to trackmainexplicitly rather than the release line.
Every :latest and every :vYYYY.MM.DD bundles the current signed Android APK, so the in-app update channel is always live. 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.
Testing
- Unit + race (no DB):
make test-short. - Full suite incl. integration tests:
make test-integration. This runs against a dedicatedminstrel_testdatabase so a test run never truncates your devminstreldata (admin user, library, likes). It brings up the compose Postgres and creates the test DB if missing. - CI runs both: a fast
go test -short -racegate plus an integration job with its own ephemeral Postgres (.gitea/workflows/test-go.yml).
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 Gitea registry.
Task and milestone tracking: Fable (Minstrel project, id 12).
License
See LICENSE.