Two related "snap in" effects on the now-playing screen: 1. **Album art snapped in after the fade.** AnimatedSwitcher cross- fades the new _AlbumArt over 300ms, but FileImage's bytes weren't decoded yet — the widget was visually empty during the fade and the cover landed abruptly after. precacheImage on the new file:// artUri pre-decodes the bytes so by the time AnimatedSwitcher mounts the new tile, the cover paints synchronously inside it. The cross-fade now carries real content end-to-end. 2. **Backdrop color snapped in.** albumColorProvider.family is loading for the new id during the track-change moment, so dominant fell back to fs.obsidian; AnimatedContainer tweened to obsidian and then snapped to the resolved color a beat later. _NowPlayingScreenState now holds _lastDominant across builds: while extraction for the new id is loading, the gradient stays on the previous album's color, then animates straight to the new one once it resolves. No intermediate obsidian stop. Net effect: track changes feel like a single smooth transition instead of fade-out → blank → snap.
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.