bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5
9f3e0b8cd3
The client compares names while Android installs by versionCode, and the wire had no way to close that gap: the sidecar was one positional line and the endpoint returned a name only. This is the plumbing that makes the ordering key decidable by the client at all. The sidecar is now JSON rather than a grown positional string. That shape was chosen against a specific failure: the obvious growth path was "<name> <code>", which a first-space split silently mangles the moment a third field appears — the code stops parsing as an integer and the reader falls back to name comparison WITHOUT erroring. JSON cannot mistake a new field for an old one. code is a POINTER on both sides, and omitempty on the wire. Absent has to stay distinguishable from zero: a build published before ordering keys were recorded genuinely has no code, and zero would claim it is infinitely old rather than unknown. A malformed sidecar now fails loudly instead of serving a blank version. If an unreadable file produced an empty name, every client would compare against nothing, conclude it was current, and go quiet — "I cannot read this" and "there is nothing newer" would return the same answer, which is the failure mode nobody reports because nobody is offered anything to report. The non-tag :latest path no longer RECONSTRUCTS the bundled APK's version. android-release now publishes the sidecar as a release asset beside the APK, and the image build downloads it. The old reconstruction duplicated a derivation formula across two files, and could only ever recover the name — the ordering key is build-time minutes and exists nowhere once that build ends. Releases predating the sidecar report their name with a null code, which is the honest answer rather than a guessed one. image-release also drops to a shallow checkout: it needed full history and tags only to re-derive versions from the tagged commit, and now touches git for nothing. MINSTREL_VERSION comes from GITHUB_REF. Two things checked rather than assumed. The Android Json sets ignoreUnknownKeys, so the added fields cannot break already-installed apps. It also sets coerceInputValues, which will silently turn a null code into 0 if step 4 declares the field non-nullable — recorded on task #3811, because reading the field declaration alone would never reveal it. Also fixes a stale comment block describing "the Flutter client", deleted in v2026.08.18. Step 3 of 5 — Scribe task #3810, 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.