Final slice of the per-item rendering pass. Wraps every tile widget in an AnimatedSwitcher between the skeleton placeholder and the real card. 220ms cross-fade with easeOut: tiles "settle into place" rather than hard-cutting from shimmer to content. Since each tile fades independently as its data lands — and the HydrationQueue's concurrency cap drains in a natural cascade — the overall feel is the staged "page builds piece by piece" effect we wanted, with no per-tile position math required. Bumps CachedNetworkImage fadeInDuration from zero to 120ms (server_ image.dart, discover_screen.dart). Imperceptible on cache hits since the image decodes synchronously; on cache misses the bytes fade in smoothly instead of popping. Slice 1's "zero fade" call was right about the 500ms default being a regression, but 120ms threads the needle. Playlist detail wraps its body in the same AnimatedSwitcher so the cold-load skeleton page cross-fades into the real track list. Tiles affected: home _AlbumTile / _ArtistTile / _TrackTile + liked _LikedAlbumTile / _LikedArtistTile / _LikedTrackRow + playlist _SkeletonBody / _Body. All keyed via ValueKey so AnimatedSwitcher detects the transition. End of the per-item pass. Net behavior: cold visits paint shaped pages instantly with skeletons, content cascades in as hydration lands; warm visits paint fully from drift in the first frame.
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.