bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5
68136c64c0
The app compared NAMES while Android installs by versionCode, with nothing keeping the two orderings consistent. So it could offer a build the platform then refused as a downgrade, or stay silent about one it would have accepted. The offer and the install were asking different questions. Both consumers — the shell banner and the About card — now route through one isUpdateAvailable(): decide on the ordering key whenever the server reports one, since that is the same value the package installer compares, so an offer implies an install that will actually be accepted. Name comparison survives only as the fallback for a server predating the field. isVersionNewer is deliberately untouched. It already degrades per segment and is not what was broken; rewriting it while nearby would have put the fallback path at risk for no gain. code is nullable on the wire, and that is load-bearing rather than stylistic. The app's Json sets coerceInputValues = true, which replaces a JSON null with the declared default on a NON-nullable property — so `val code: Long = 0` would have turned "this server reports no ordering key" into "its key is 0" silently, ranking every such server as infinitely behind and offering its build to everyone forever. Reading the field declaration alone would never show that; it lives in AppModule. A third caller turned up during the sweep and was deliberately left alone. NetworkStatusController compares the /healthz minClientVersion, which is a server-declared compatibility floor rather than the bundled APK — there is no ordering key on that wire at all, so names remain the only thing it can compare. Different question, correctly still using the old helper. The update channel had no tests whatsoever before this, which is worth stating: the thing deciding whether anyone is ever offered an update fails silently in both directions. The new suite pins that the key wins when it disagrees with the name, that a null key falls back rather than reading as zero, the recorded migration constraint (a new-scheme name outranks an old-scheme one across a day boundary but NOT within the same day), and the degradation cases — including that an unparseable DECIDING segment reads as zero and loses, which is why the channel must never live inside the name. Every assertion was checked against the real comparison by mirroring it, rather than from reading it: two of my first-draft comments described the wrong mechanism and were corrected on the evidence. Step 4 of 5 — Scribe task #3811, milestone #390. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01SQ31KQpYbStyK5y58UmPLH
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.HHMM— immutable release tags, never moved or deleted. Pin one for a deployment you don't want changing under you. The tag is the build's own version name with avin front, derived from the tagged commit's UTC timestamp, so two releases can never collide and a re-cut is simply a new tag.: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.HHMM 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.
Releases before 2026-09-10 use the older per-day :vYYYY.MM.DD shape. Those tags still exist and still work — they are simply not extended.
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.