NovaSonic/CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md

Guidance for Claude Code when working in this repository.

What this is

NovaSonic — a self-hosted music streaming PWA (Vite + vanilla ES modules) and Android app (Jetpack Compose + Media3/ExoPlayer) for Navidrome / Subsonic servers, plus a Node.js/Express backend that downloads tracks via yt-dlp and proxies APIs.

Critical rules

• Never hardcode or mock frontend data. All library data comes from the Navidrome (Subsonic) API. No placeholder songs/albums/artists, ever.
• Don't commit or push unless asked. When asked, push to the Gitea remote.
• Two-part versioning MAJOR.MINOR (e.g. 0.8) — no patch component. Each release bumps the minor; features and fixes go in the same release. See CHANGELOG.md.
• Keep the CHANGELOG.md Platform Parity Matrix accurate when adding cross-platform features.

Layout

• src/ — web PWA (vanilla ES modules). State in src/state.js (the S object); Subsonic/iTunes API in src/api.js; views in src/views/, UI in src/ui/.
• backend/novasonic-server.js — Express API (downloads, metadata edit/delete, events/ABS proxy).
• backend/lib/ — ytdlp.js (download + cascade + ffmpeg tagging), downloader.js, metadata.js (iTunes lookup, file resolution helpers), config.js, jobs.js, romaji.js.
• android/ — native Kotlin app (separate; backend-dependent web features like the metadata editor are not in the Android app).

Commands

npm run dev      # Vite dev server (HMR)
npm run build    # production build → dist/
npm run preview  # preview the production build

Backend runs in Docker (see docker-compose.yml); on the deploy host it lives at /opt/navidrome/music. Restart after backend changes: docker compose restart novasonic-backend (this also re-pulls the latest yt-dlp).

Download pipeline (hard-won knowledge)

• Downloads are yt-dlp only (the old squid.wtf/Qobuz backend was removed).
• File naming: {NN - }Artist - Title.ext with the release suffix stripped from the title (no - Single/- EP). The album folder keeps the full album name. Original names are used for folder, filename, and all main tags (artist/title/album/album_artist) — even for Japanese tracks. Romaji goes only into sort tags (TITLESORT / ARTISTSORT / etc.).
• Search cascade (ytdlp.js): YTM search first (web_music player client, Songs filter param), then regular YouTube; each candidate filtered by duration (±10%, min 10s), title keyword, artist channel, and variant exclusions (remix/cover/sped/…).
• "Mittelweg" rule (with AND without duration): when nothing matches in the filtered steps, relax only the duration constraint while still requiring the artist channel. If nothing matches, download nothing and fail cleanly with "Nicht eindeutig gefunden — bitte Direktlink im Importer nutzen". Never fall back to a blind title-only/no-filter grab — it pulled same-titled covers by other uploaders, and wrong Piano Echoes for Japanese tracks.
• Size cap: --max-filesize 30M on every yt-dlp call; Mittelweg steps also cap at 2× expected duration. Prevents saving a 28-min video (52 MB) when the wrong result slips through.
• Duplicate detection (metadata.js findExistingTrack): searches case-insensitively across all album folders under the matching artist folder; compares normalized artist+title ignoring track prefix and release/variant suffix. Handles DJ OKAWARI vs DJ Okawari and "- Single" drift.
• Known limitation: yt-dlp's YTM/YouTube search can't surface very obscure Art Tracks by ambiguously-named artists (e.g. "MINA") — the browser finds them, yt-dlp's API extraction doesn't (confirmed across params/clients/deno). For those, the direct link in the importer (sourceUrl path) is the reliable route.
• File resolution for edit/delete: Navidrome's stored path may use a different mount root or a stale stem. metadata.js rebases the path and falls back to recursive/stem matching (tolerant of release-suffix mismatch). A ghost Navidrome entry needs a full library rescan.
• Album splitting: prevented by consistent album_artist tag. All tracks in a download share the same mainArtist value (= iTunes collectionArtistName when available, else albumArtist param, else track artist). Never use rawArtist for album_artist.

UI / references

When referencing files in chat, use clickable markdown links, not backticks: [ytdlp.js](backend/lib/ytdlp.js).