Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into wails-v3

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# 015 — Android release pipeline
Ship an Android APK from CI on every version tag, published to the Gitea
generic package registry so Obtainium can poll a plain URL.
The baseline is `~/Development/ljos`, whose `.gitea/workflows/ci.yml`
`android:` job has been through the failure modes already. Most of what
follows is a transcription of that job onto this repo's conventions;
where it differs, the difference is argued.
## What this is not
**This ships a pipeline, not a usable Android music player.** The
success criterion is a signed, installable APK that launches — not an
app anyone would want. Explicitly out of scope, and each is real:
- `backend/mediacontrols/mpris_linux.go` **will be compiled on Android**.
Go's `android` GOOS implies the `linux` build tag, so the `//go:build
linux` file is in the build and MPRIS will look for a session bus that
does not exist. It compiles; it will error at runtime.
- `backend/system` resolves XDG paths. Android has no XDG.
- The explore catalog artifact is ~0.6 GB. Nothing on a phone wants that.
- The shell is a desktop shell: an eleven-item sidebar, a 800×600
measured minimum, a transport bar. None of that is a phone layout.
- The library scanner walks a filesystem Android does not grant.
Those are the *next* plan, if there is one. Conflating them with this one
is how a build pipeline takes six weeks.
## Phase 0 — the gate [DONE 2026-08-16]
**Passed, further than asked.** No source changes were needed; a full
27 MB fat APK built first try, both ABIs, production-stripped. Numbers,
the environment and four non-obvious findings are in
`.planning/NOTES.md` — including a scaffold bug that put a *debug*
library in the release APK's phone ABI, fixed here.
**It also installs and launches on an emulator, and then exits.** One
line stops it: `backend/system/buildUserDirPath` switches on
`runtime.GOOS` and Android takes the `default:` branch returning
`errUnsupportedOS`, so `main()` hits `os.Exit(1)` six milliseconds
after the JNI bridge comes up. That is the *first* thing that stops it,
not the only one — see the "not this" section above, all of which is
still true and still out of scope.
The emulator tier that found it is now part of the harness:
`scripts/android-emulator.sh`, the `make android-*` targets, and
`.pi/skills/yellowjacket-dev/references/android-tier.md`. It exists
because the failure is invisible in all three places anyone would look
(no panic, no tombstone, no crash buffer) and ActivityManager restarts
the app fast enough that `pidof` always answers — so the tier's
assertion is "same pid after N seconds", not "it started".
Original phase 0 text follows, kept because its reasoning is what the
later phases rest on.
Everything downstream is wasted if the c-shared link fails. Establish it
by hand, locally, before writing a line of YAML.
Already established, by probe rather than by assumption:
```
GOOS=android GOARCH=arm64 CGO_ENABLED=0 go build ./backend/... ./internal/...
```
compiles the entire tree. Exactly two packages fail, and both fail only
because their Android implementation is cgo:
- `ebitengine/oto/v3``driver_android.go` needs the bundled **oboe**
C++ backend. Oto supports Android natively; there is no Java audio
glue to write.
- `wails/v3/pkg/application``mobile_features_android.go` needs the
JNI bridge.
`modernc.org/sqlite` (the whole database layer), `beep`, `godbus` and
every `backend/` package are clean. **No source changes are known to be
required**, which is the single most surprising finding here and the
reason this plan is worth doing at all.
What Phase 0 must actually verify:
1. Install NDK **r26d** (`26.3.11579264`) locally. Pinned, not "whatever
sdkmanager gives you" — ljos's AGENTS.md records newer NDKs breaking
this build.
2. Generate the scaffolding (Phase 1) and run
`wails3 task android:compile:go:shared ARCH=arm64` by hand.
3. Confirm `build/android/app/src/main/jniLibs/arm64-v8a/libwails.so`
exists and is an ARM64 shared object.
4. Repeat for `amd64` (the emulator ABI).
**If the link fails, stop and re-plan.** The likely culprits, in order:
alsa (oto must select oboe, not ALSA — if it reaches for `alsa.pc` the
build tags are wrong), and `main.go`'s `//go:embed all:frontend/dist`
combined with the generated `main_android.gen.go` overlay.
Deliverable: a note in `.planning/NOTES.md` recording the exact command
and the NDK version that produced a `.so`, or the reason it cannot.
## Phase 1 — un-ignore and commit the Android scaffolding [DONE]
Done as a side-effect of phase 0, which could not run without it. One
correction to the text below: **step 1 is wrong.** `update
build-assets` does not generate the android tree (NOTES.md explains);
it was generated with `generate build-assets` into a scratch dir and
`android/` copied across. CLAUDE.md is corrected to match. Steps 2-5
were done as written.
`build/android/` is gitignored (`.gitignore:72`) and its `includes:`
entry was dropped from `Taskfile.yml` during plan 009. That was correct
when nothing could target Android and is what has to be undone.
1. `wails3 task common:update:build-assets` — beta.8 embeds
`internal/commands/build_assets/android/`, so this generates the tree.
2. Remove `build/android/` from `.gitignore`; add `build/ios/`'s reason
to a comment so the asymmetry is explained rather than looking like an
oversight.
3. Add `android: ./build/android/Taskfile.yml` to `Taskfile.yml`'s
`includes:`.
4. **Gitignore the tree's own output**, or the repo grows a few hundred
Gradle intermediates. ljos has exactly this problem — its
`app/build/android/app/build/**` is committed. Ignore:
- `build/android/app/build/`
- `build/android/app/src/main/jniLibs/`
- `build/android/overlay.json` and `build/android/gen/`
5. `make build-prod` and `make test` still pass — the new include must
not perturb the desktop path.
**The refresh hazard has to be written down.** CLAUDE.md's Packaging
section already says `build/`'s platform metadata is regenerated from
`build/config.yml` and hand edits are lost. Phase 2 edits `build.gradle`
by hand. Extend that paragraph to name `build/android/app/build.gradle`
specifically, because the loss is silent and the symptom (a debug-signed
APK) appears months later as a failed update.
## Phase 2 — make the APK identifiable and updatable [DONE 2026-08-16]
**Narrower than planned, because beta.8's scaffold is ahead of ljos's
beta.3: the release signing config already exists** and reads the four
`ANDROID_KEYSTORE_*` variables with a debug-keystore fallback. So this
phase was identity and versioning only. Verified end to end:
| | |
|---|---|
| package | `app.yellowjacket` (was `com.wails.app`) |
| versionCode / versionName | `10301` / `1.3.1`, from `YJ_VERSION_CODE` / `YJ_VERSION` |
| label | `YellowJacket` |
| signing | throwaway keystore -> `Signer #1 DN: CN=YellowJacket Test`, not the debug key |
| ABIs | arm64-v8a + x86_64, both production-stripped |
Installs and launches under the new identity. Still exits on the known
`buildUserDirPath` bug, which is phase 0's finding and not this phase's.
Two things this phase learned that the text below did not know:
- **The identity has to be declared twice.** `applicationId` in
`app/build.gradle` is what Gradle installs; `APP_ID` in
`build/android/Taskfile.yml` is what every adb-driven task targets.
`ANDROID.md` says to set `APP_ID` in `build/config.yml` — that does
nothing in beta.8, verified with `--dry`. Both are set, each
commented pointing at the other.
- **The launcher activity is not under the applicationId.** It stays
`com.wails.app.MainActivity` (the scaffold's Java package), so
`am start -n app.yellowjacket/.MainActivity` resolves the dot against
the wrong package and fails. `scripts/android-emulator.sh` carries the
fully-qualified name and a comment saying why.
The `keytool` PKCS12 note below was confirmed verbatim: given a
`-keypass` differing from `-storepass` it prints "Different store and
key passwords not supported for PKCS12 KeyStores. Ignoring
user-specified -keypass value."
Original phase 2 text follows.
Edit `build/android/app/build.gradle`, following ljos's, whose comments
are worth reading before writing this:
- `applicationId "app.yellowjacket"` — matches `config.yml`'s
`productIdentifier`. The `namespace` stays `com.wails.app` (it is the
Java package, not the app identity).
- `versionCode Integer.parseInt(System.getenv("YJ_VERSION_CODE") ?: "1")`
**`Integer.parseInt`, not `(...) as Integer`**. Groovy binds the
parentheses to `versionCode` first, so the cast reads as
`versionCode("1") as Integer`, which sets a String and then casts the
setter's null return; Gradle fails the whole project with "Value is
null" at that line.
- `versionName System.getenv("YJ_VERSION") ?: "0.0.0"`.
- `abiFilters 'arm64-v8a', 'x86_64'`.
- A `release` signing config reading `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_FILE` /
`_PASSWORD` / `ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS` / `ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD`, falling
back to the debug keystore only when no keystore is supplied.
**Android orders releases by an integer and refuses anything not greater
than what is installed.** A hardcoded `versionCode 1` means the first
install is the last: every later build is rejected as a downgrade and the
only fix is an uninstall. `1.3.1 -> 10301`, monotonic as long as minor
and patch stay under 100.
**Signing is not optional past the first install.** Android refuses to
update an app whose signing key changed, and the debug keystore differs
between every machine and every runner — so an unsigned CI build is a
decision to reinstall by hand forever. The job must **refuse to build**
without the keystore rather than quietly produce an APK that can never be
updated.
There is **one password and two required secrets**. keytool has defaulted
to PKCS12 since JDK 9 regardless of the `.jks` extension, and PKCS12
cannot hold a separate key password — given `-keypass` it warns and
ignores it. So `ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD` defaults to the store password and
`ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS` to `yellowjacket`. Asking for a second password that
cannot exist is how someone sets a wrong value and debugs Gradle at
midnight.
Add `make android``PATH="$(TOOLBIN):$$PATH" go tool wails3 task
android:package:fat`, beside `build-prod`. `make skill-check` fails on a
documented target that does not exist, so document it only once it does.
## Phase 3 — the workflow [DONE 2026-08-16]
`.gitea/workflows/android-apk.yml`, plus `docs/android-release.md` as
the operating document its error messages point at (phase 4's
documentation half; the secrets themselves still have to be created by
hand — see the table there).
Three departures from the text below, all argued in the file:
- **No `continue-on-error`.** The plan inherited it from ljos, where
the Android job shares a pipeline with a server deploy that must
never go red over a phone build. Here it is standalone and can
neither delay nor redden anything, so a release step that fails
silently is strictly worse than one that fails visibly.
- **No cached `wails3` binary.** The plan budgeted for ljos's
`tools-bin` copy. Unnecessary: the CLI is a vendored `go tool`, and
the runner already bind-mounts `GOCACHE`/`GOMODCACHE` for every job,
so it is warm from `ci.yml`'s own `make bindings-check`. The GTK and
WebKit *dev* headers are still installed, because `go tool wails3`
links them.
- **A fourth cache volume, `/cache/gradle`.** Not in the plan and worth
~700 MB a run.
Four publish-gates were added and each was checked against a real APK:
both ABIs present, `versionCode` equal to the one derived from the tag,
a non-empty artifact, and **not signed with the debug key** — verified
by pointing the check at a deliberately debug-signed build, which it
refused.
Rehearsed locally with the exact CI invocation
(`make android ANDROID_SDK=... ANDROID_NDK=...`, `YJ_VERSION`,
`YJ_VERSION_CODE`, a throwaway keystore): `app.yellowjacket`,
versionCode 10301, versionName 1.3.1, label YellowJacket, both ABIs,
`Signer #1 DN: CN=YellowJacket`. Not yet run on the runner.
Original phase 3 text follows.
New file: `.gitea/workflows/android-apk.yml`. **Not a job in `ci.yml`.**
`ci.yml` runs on every branch push and is the workflow that gates; the
runner is capacity 1, and a 45-minute Android build in it would put every
push behind an SDK download.
```yaml
on:
push:
tags: ["v*"]
workflow_dispatch:
```
This is where the baseline genuinely diverges. ljos computes its version
in CI (`scripts/next-version.sh`) and gates the Android job on
`needs.release.outputs.version != ''`, with an `always()` whose absence
would silently kill the manual path. **This repo has no release
automation** — tags are pushed by hand and `homebrew-formula.yml` already
keys on `v*`. So there is no `needs:`, no `always()`, and no status
function to get wrong: the tag *is* the version, and a dispatch falls
back to `git describe --tags --abbrev=0`.
Container, matching `ci.yml`'s conventions (`ubuntu:24.04`, clone by hand
with `PACKAGE_TOKEN` rather than `actions/checkout`, which is a JS action
needing node before any step has installed it):
```yaml
container:
image: ubuntu:24.04
volumes:
- /home/logan/docker/gitea/data/runner/cache/tool:/cache/tool
- /home/logan/docker/gitea/data/runner/cache/android-sdk:/cache/android-sdk
```
The SDK path must be inside the runner's `valid_volumes` allowlist —
a directory outside it makes the job **fail to start**, not silently skip
the mount. `/cache/tool` is already allowed and already holds the Go
toolchain `ci.yml` downloads.
`continue-on-error: true` and `timeout-minutes: 45`. Advisory, because a
tag's other three workflows must not go red over a phone build, and a
backstop because a wedged SDK download must not hold the only runner slot
for hours.
Steps:
1. **System packages.** `ci.yml`'s set plus `unzip` and `openjdk-17-jdk`.
`libasound2-dev` stays — it is for the *host* `wails3` build, not the
Android cross-build, which uses oboe.
2. **Go toolchain** — reuse `ci.yml`'s `/cache/tool/go` block verbatim.
3. **Android SDK and NDK (cached).** ljos's `install_if_missing`
idempotent guard, unchanged: cmdline-tools 11076708, `platform-tools`,
`platforms;android-34`, `build-tools;34.0.0`, `ndk;26.3.11579264`.
sdkmanager is itself idempotent but still spends minutes verifying,
which is why the explicit directory guards are there. ~3 GB and most of
the job's wall clock on the first run; a directory listing after.
4. **wails3.** Cheaper here than in ljos, which pins
`go install …/wails3@$version` against `app/go.mod`. This repo vendors
the CLI (`go tool wails3`, `scripts/toolbin/wails3`), so the version is
already pinned by `go.mod` and there is nothing to drift. It still
*links* GTK and WebKit, so cache the built binary in
`/cache/android-sdk/tools-bin` keyed on the wails version — and note
ljos's finding that **caching the binary alone turned a slow job into
a broken one**: `wails3` is dynamically linked, so the runtime
packages are needed even on a cache hit. Here they are already in
step 1.
5. **Frontend + codegen.** `pnpm install --frozen-lockfile && pnpm build`
(pnpm, not ljos's npm), then `make generate`. `main.go` embeds
`frontend/dist`, so nothing Go-side typechecks without it.
6. **Decode the keystore.** Refuse to build if `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_B64` is
unset, with the sentence explaining why (Phase 2). Decide the absolute
path *here* and export it via `$GITHUB_ENV`**`${{ env.HOME }}`
evaluates to an empty string in Gitea's expression context**, which
turned `$HOME/x.jks` into `/x.jks` and surfaced as a missing file
fifty-five seconds into a Gradle run.
7. **Build.** Compute `YJ_VERSION_CODE` from the tag, verify the keystore
opens with `keytool -list` *before* Gradle does (Gradle only notices at
`:app:validateSigningRelease`, a minute in, and reports it as a missing
file), then `make android`.
8. **Verify the signature.** `apksigner verify --print-certs`, and print
the SHA-256 with the note that a change to it breaks every future
update. **Nothing here pipes into `head`**: under `set -o pipefail`,
`head -1` exits early, the producer takes SIGPIPE, and the step fails
with 141 *after* printing a perfectly good APK. Use `find … -print
-quit` and a captured variable.
9. **Publish** to `api/packages/${OWNER}/generic/yellowjacket-android`,
authenticating `--user "${OWNER}:${PACKAGE_TOKEN}"` — the same
credential pair `arch-package.yml` already uses, not ljos's
`REGISTRY_USER`/`REGISTRY_TOKEN`. Two copies: a versioned one for
history and a fixed `latest/yellowjacket.apk` that Obtainium watches.
Gitea refuses to overwrite, so delete `latest` first. The generic
registry is readable **without credentials**, which is what lets
Obtainium poll a plain URL with no token and no public source mirror.
## Phase 4 — secrets and documentation
Secrets to create on the repo (all under Settings → Actions → Secrets):
| Secret | Required | Note |
|---|---|---|
| `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_B64` | yes | `base64 -w0 yellowjacket-release.jks` |
| `ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD` | yes | |
| `ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS` | no | defaults to `yellowjacket` |
| `ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD` | no | defaults to the store password |
| `PACKAGE_TOKEN` | already exists | used by `arch-package.yml` |
Write the keytool command, the Obtainium URL and the signing-key warning
into a docs page — this is the part of ljos's setup that lives in
`docs/clients.md` and is referenced from the workflow's error messages,
so the messages have somewhere to point.
Then extend CLAUDE.md's CI section: it currently says "four workflows,
three of them package and publish; only `ci.yml` gates". That becomes
five, with the same sentence still true.
## Order and stopping points
Phase 0 gates everything. Phases 12 are one commit's worth of work and
are verifiable locally without CI. Phase 3 is the only part that needs a
runner, and its first run will be slow and will probably fail once on
something in the SDK step — budget for that rather than treating it as a
setback.
**Stop after Phase 0 if the c-shared link does not work.** Every later
phase is scaffolding for a build that does not exist, and the honest
outcome is a NOTES.md entry saying which package cannot cross-compile and
what it would take.
@@ -0,0 +1,389 @@
# 016 — What Android parity would actually take
> **Status: all of section A is done.** A1A3 landed with "let the app
> reach the user's music"; A4 (MediaSession, transport notification,
> audio focus) landed with "survive the screen locking". The direction
> taken is **option 1, the full librarian**: `MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE`
> plus an in-app folder browser, which keeps the path-keyed model
> intact. B1/B2 remain, both awaiting a decision rather than work. The
> sections below are kept as written, because they are the argument the
> decision rests on — see "What is left" at the end for the current
> state.
Plan 015 shipped a *pipeline*: the app cross-compiles, is signed and
versioned, and publishes from CI. This is the assessment of what stands
between that and an Android app worth installing.
**The headline: parity is the wrong target, and choosing it would be
the expensive mistake.** Four of the blockers below are not porting work
— they are the Android platform declining to support the model this app
is built on. The decision to make first is in "The fork in the road" at
the end; everything before it is evidence for that decision.
Severity is what the app *does* today, verified against the source and
the generated manifest, not guessed.
## A. It cannot work at all until these are fixed
### A1. The app can read no music. (deepest)
`build/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml` requests INTERNET,
VIBRATE, ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, USE_BIOMETRIC, POST_NOTIFICATIONS, the
two location permissions, CAMERA and the two FOREGROUND_SERVICE ones.
**There is no storage or media permission of any kind.** At
`targetSdk 35` that means the app can see its own private directory and
nothing else.
Adding `READ_MEDIA_AUDIO` is necessary and *not sufficient*, because it
grants access through **MediaStore**, not through the filesystem. This
app's entire model is absolute paths: `audio_files.file_path` is the
primary key of ownership, `AddLibrary(path)` takes a directory, the
scanner walks it with `os.ReadDir`, and every one of
`GetFilePathsByAlbums` / `ByGenres` / `ByRecordingMBIDs` exists to hand
paths to the player. Scoped storage does not offer a stable directory
to walk.
The honest options are three, and they are not close in cost:
- **MediaStore as the library source.** Query the content resolver,
keep MediaStore IDs (or content URIs) beside or instead of paths, and
open audio through a `ContentResolver` file descriptor. This is the
Android-native answer and it touches the schema, the scanner, the
player's file opening and every path-keyed query.
- **`MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE`.** Keeps the path model intact and is
effectively barred from Google Play except for genuine file managers.
Viable *only* because we distribute through Obtainium — which is a
real point in its favour here, and worth stating plainly rather than
dismissing.
- **App-private storage only**, i.e. the user copies music into the
app's sandbox. Trivial to build, and nobody wants it.
### A2. The first-run flow cannot complete.
`first-run-wizard.ts` calls `DirectoryPicker()`, which is
`frontendutil.DirectoryPicker``app.Dialog.OpenFile().
CanChooseDirectories(true)`. Wails' own `ANDROID.md` lists open-directory
dialogs as **"❌ Returns an error — SAF yields tree URIs, not filesystem
paths"**. So the one action the wizard exists to perform fails, and
`<first-run-wizard>` intercepts all pointer events until a library
exists — so the app is not merely empty, it is inert.
Whatever A1 resolves to decides this: a MediaStore library needs no
picker at all, and a SAF tree needs the picker to return a URI the
backend can use.
### A3. MPRIS is compiled into the Android build.
`mpris_linux.go` is `//go:build linux`, and **`android` implies
`linux`** (documented, and the reason it is in the APK). It will look
for a session bus that does not exist. It needs `//go:build linux &&
!android`, and its Android counterpart is A4.
This one is cheap and should be done regardless — it is a two-character
build-tag change plus whatever `mediacontrols.New` returns instead.
### A4. Playback will be killed the moment the screen locks.
The scaffold's `WailsForegroundService` is typed **`dataSync`**
(`foregroundServiceType="dataSync"`, `FOREGROUND_SERVICE_TYPE_DATA_SYNC`),
and the manifest requests `FOREGROUND_SERVICE_DATA_SYNC`. A music player
needs `mediaPlayback` and `FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK`, plus a
`MediaSession` for lock-screen and notification transport controls,
plus **audio focus** — pause on a phone call, duck for a notification,
pause on headphone unplug. None of that exists today. `oto` will happily
keep writing to a stream nobody can hear.
This is the difference between "an app that plays audio" and "a music
player", and it is Java-side work in the scaffold plus a Go-side bridge.
## B. It works, but wrongly
### B1. The x86_64 half of the APK cannot run on any Android.
Established in plan 015: `modernc.org/libc`'s `Xlstat64` issues a raw
`lstat` on linux/amd64, which Android's seccomp forbids, so the process
takes `SIGSYS` the first time it touches the database. arm64 is
structurally unaffected (no `lstat` syscall exists; it routes through
`fstatat`).
So ~31 MB of the artifact is dead weight on *every* Android device,
including x86 Chromebooks. Options: drop `x86_64` from `abiFilters`
(smaller APK, no emulator target — which does not work anyway), or
carry it against a future modernc fix. **Dropping it is the honest
default**; it is also the only item in this plan that is a five-minute
change.
### B2. The UI is a desktop shell.
`MinWidth`/`MinHeight` are 800×600 and were *measured* — below ~780 the
header subtitle wraps the title out of its bar. A phone is ~360430 CSS
px wide. The sidebar collapses to icons below 900px, which is a
laptop-sized breakpoint, not a phone one. Beyond width: the app is built
on hover (the marquee's `hover` mode, tooltips), right-click context
menus, a keyboard shortcut layer with its own overlay and settings page,
multi-select with ctrl/shift, and a resizable-column track list. None of
those are gestures.
This is not a stylesheet pass. It is a second front end for the views
worth having on a phone, sharing the stores and bindings — which the
architecture supports, since a view is already a lazily-loaded chunk
behind `VIEW_LOADERS`.
### B3. Tag writing cannot reach the user's files.
`tagwriter` rewrites tags in place, and autotag's whole purpose is
applying them to a folder. Under scoped storage that is impossible
outside the sandbox without a SAF write grant per tree. If A1 lands on
MediaStore, in-place tag writing needs `MediaStore` write requests and
user confirmation per file on Android 11+.
Autotagging is arguably a desktop-only feature and saying so is a
legitimate answer.
### B4. The Explore catalog is a ~0.6 GB download into app-private storage.
It works — but with no awareness of a metered connection and no
accounting for a device where that is a meaningful fraction of free
space. At minimum it needs to be opt-in on mobile and to refuse a
metered network by default. `Android.NetworkJSON()` reports
`{connected,type}`, so the signal is available.
## C. Inert, and fine
Window geometry, menus and the system tray are documented no-ops on
mobile. The keyboard shortcut layer is harmless but its Settings page
is dead weight. `profiling` is already compiled out of production
builds. These cost nothing and need no work.
## D. Unknown until it runs on a device
**Nothing in section A or B has been observed on Android**, because the
x86_64 emulator cannot run the app (B1) and emulator 37 refuses arm64
images on an x86_64 host. Everything above is read from the source, the
generated manifest and Wails' own documentation. The first real device
run will find things this list does not have, and the most likely
places are audio latency and buffering under `oto`/oboe, and SQLite
behaviour on app-private storage.
## The fork in the road
The four blockers in section A are all the same question wearing
different clothes: **is the Android app a librarian, or a player?**
YellowJacket on the desktop is a *librarian*. It scans folders,
deduplicates covers, detects duplicate tracks, reconciles against
MusicBrainz, rewrites tags on disk, and manages downloads. That model
rests on owning a filesystem, which is precisely what Android declines
to give.
Three coherent products, and only the first is "parity":
1. **Full librarian on Android.** Requires `MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE`
(Obtainium-only distribution, which we already have), a phone UI for
every view, and media-session playback. Largest scope by far; the
result is an app almost nobody has asked for on a phone.
2. **A player for music already on the phone.** MediaStore as the
source, no scanner, no autotag, no downloads; the library, queue,
playlists, favourites and Explore-as-browsing all still make sense.
This is a genuinely good Android app and it is *not* parity — it is
a subset with a different data source.
3. **A companion to the desktop app.** The phone browses and controls
the desktop's library over the network, or syncs a subset. Smallest
Android surface, and it leans on the thing that already works.
**Option 2 is the recommendation** if the goal is an app people use;
option 3 if the goal is the least work for the most value. Option 1 is
the only one that answers "feature parity" literally, and it is the one
worth arguing hardest against.
> **Decided:** option 1's *data model* (the librarian keeps its
> filesystem and its scanner — A1 shipped that) with option 2's
> *surface*. The phone is a player over the library this app already
> builds; it does not get every view. The list is below.
## The phone gets a subset (decided)
B2 is not a stylesheet pass and not a second front end either. A view
is already a lazily-loaded chunk behind `VIEW_LOADERS` /
`DETAIL_LOADERS` in `index.ts`, and the stores and bindings are shared,
so the phone build is **a different loader table and a different
chrome**, over the same stores.
**In**, because each is something a person does with a phone in their
hand:
- **Home** — the shelves are already a phone-shaped surface.
- **Library browse** — albums, artists, genres. The grids are already
virtualized and card-shaped.
- **Now playing** — which on a phone is a *view*, not a 4em bar.
- **The queue.**
- **Search** — the header box, scoped as it already is.
- **Playlists**, including smart ones, as lists to play rather than to
edit.
**Out**, and each for a reason rather than by omission:
- **Autotag** — the review UI is a wide table and the action rewrites
files on disk; B3 has not been verified even as *possible* yet.
- **Downloads** — two tab panels of client configuration.
- **Explore** — the catalog is a ~0.6 GB download (B4); browsing it is
the last thing to earn a phone's storage.
- **Settings** — not the page. The phone needs a handful of settings
(theme, the library folder, playback) and not the 93 controls the
desktop page carries.
- **Jobs**, **shortcuts overlay**, **column configuration** — a phone
has no keyboard and no resizable columns, and the jobs indicator is
enough.
What the shell has to lose, from the audit at the top of this section:
the 800×600 minimum, the 11-item sidebar (a phone wants a bottom tab
bar over the five things above), hover as a route to anything,
right-click as the only route to a context menu (long-press is the
gesture), and ctrl/shift multi-select.
One rule for the work: **no view forks.** A phone layout that copies a
view's template is two templates to fix every bug in. Where a view
cannot serve both, the split belongs at the chunk boundary that already
exists.
Phase 1 followed that rule and found its cost: reusing `<app-sidebar>`
inside the drawer means reusing its `data-testid`s too, and a second
copy standing by in the DOM broke 30 specs that had nothing to do with
the phone. The rule holds — a second list of destinations would be
worse — but a shared component must be rendered only when it is wanted,
and the guard belongs in a test that names the reason.
## What is worth doing regardless of that decision
Cheap, independently useful, and each unblocks measurement:
1. **Drop `x86_64` from `abiFilters`** (B1) — or keep it and document
why. Five minutes.
2. **`//go:build linux && !android` on `mpris_linux.go`** (A3), so the
Android build stops carrying a D-Bus client. Small.
3. **A device smoke run**, which needs someone's phone and the published
APK. Everything in D depends on it, and it is the single highest
information-per-minute action available.
4. **Make the first-run wizard fail legibly** rather than inertly (A2)
— the picker's error already routes through `describeError`, but the
wizard still blocks pointer events, so an Android user sees a dead
screen rather than a sentence. Even under option 3 this is the right
behaviour.
## What is left (updated after A4)
**A4 is done.** `backend/mediacontrols/android.go` is a `Handler`
beside the MPRIS one, and the Java half is
`WailsForegroundService.java`: a `MediaSession`, a `MediaStyle`
transport notification and audio focus. It needed no new JNI and no new
Gradle dependency — `application.Android.StartForegroundService(json)`
going out, `WailsBridge.emitEvent` → the application event bus coming
back, and the platform `android.media.session` API rather than
androidx.media, which minSdk 21 makes available anyway.
Four decisions in it are worth keeping:
- **Ducking is a player concept, not a volume change.**
`Player.SetDuck` re-applies the *user's* level with an attenuation
offset, so `getUserVolume` still reports what the user chose and
nothing is persisted or emitted. A duck that wrote through to the
volume would let one notification tone permanently turn the music
down.
- **The duck path is pre-Oreo only.** From API 26 the framework ducks
the app itself and sends no `CAN_DUCK` focus change, so asking to be
told instead (`setWillPauseWhenDucked`) would mean pausing for every
notification tone, and doing both would attenuate twice.
- **An unchanged payload is not an event here either.** Every push
crosses JNI and re-delivers an Intent, and the player pushes state on
several paths that can agree.
- **After the first start, updates use `startService`.** From Android
12 an app in the background may not *start* a foreground service, but
it may keep delivering intents to one it already has — which is every
track change with the screen off.
The contract with Java — the payload keys, the state words, the command
names — is in `androidpayload.go`, deliberately *without* the `android`
build tag, so `go test` exercises it on every platform. Everything left
in `android.go` is untested by construction: it compiles only under a
cross-compiler and runs only on a phone.
**B1 is done: x86_64 is dropped.** 27.1 MB → 15.9 MB, measured. Three
places had to agree — `abiFilters`, the Makefile's `android:package`
(or Go still compiles a library Gradle then discards) and the
`native-code: 'arm64-v8a'$` assertion in `android-apk.yml`, whose
anchor is what stops it also matching the fat APK's line. Adding the
ABI back, if modernc ever fixes `Xlstat64`, is those same three edits.
**B2, the desktop shell.** Scope decided (below); **phases 1, 2 and 3
are done.**
- *Phase 1, the shell.* Below 600px the sidebar column is gone,
`<bottom-nav>` is the primary navigation, and the shell fits 320px
exactly — measured, from 652px in a 360px viewport before.
- *Phase 2, the full-screen now-playing view.* Where phase 1's seek bar
and volume went. A detail view, so Back pops the nav stack; it
composes the real transport components rather than copying them; and
it hides the bottom bar while it is up, so it carries its own queue
button.
- *Phase 3, long-press.* `utils/long-press.ts`: one document-capture
listener, installed once from `index.ts`, which turns a 500 ms
stationary touch into a synthetic `contextmenu` at the touch point.
Every menu in the app opens from that event, so all six components
gained the gesture without one of them changing — which is the same
argument `ContextMenuController` rests on, one layer lower. The
details that are not obvious are in `NOTES.md` (2026-08-17); the one
worth repeating is that ours is told from the browser's own
long-press event by **identity**, not `isTrusted`, because a test
cannot dispatch a trusted event and that path would otherwise be the
only uncovered one.
What is left of B2 is the track list, whose resizable columns are a
pointer feature with no touch equivalent. Not started.
**B3/B4** are unchanged, and B3 is now *possible* where it was not:
with all-files access, `tagwriter` can write in place.
### What the first device run answered (2026-08-17)
A4 **works**: playback survives the screen locking, and the transport
notification appears with cover art — which also settles the service's
access to a `MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` path, the permission grant and
the lock-screen session in one observation. Everything below in "what
none of section A answered" was written before this and is now answered
except the OEM permission-flow variance.
It also found two faults no browser tier can see, both fixed and both
awaiting the next APK for confirmation (`NOTES.md`, same date):
- **Back quit the app from any depth.** The scaffold asks
`webView.canGoBack()`; the frontend had never used `history`. A
navigation is a history entry now, and `navStack` is gone rather than
kept beside it.
- **The transport was under the gesture bar** — or so the version
number said. `applyWindowInsets()` in `MainActivity` is right and
stays, but the phone is **Android 14**, where the system still insets
the window: the fix is pre-emptive and the symptom has another cause.
Still open, along with icons that do not appear at all. The phone's
WebView is **Chrome 113**, which is the lead (no Popover API, no
relaxed CSS nesting), and `make android-inspect` / `android-eval` are
how it gets asked.
The standing item is unchanged in kind: **B3 (tag writing) and the
permission flow still need a device**, and so does confirming these two.
### What none of section A answered
Nothing here has been observed on a device. The permission flow in
particular is the kind of thing that behaves differently across OEM
builds — `ACTION_MANAGE_APP_ALL_FILES_ACCESS_PERMISSION` is
implemented inconsistently, which is why there is a fallback to the
global list, and neither path has been exercised.
A4 adds its own list of things only a device can answer, and they are
the likely first failures: whether the notification appears at all
(POST_NOTIFICATIONS is requested from `startForegroundService`, so a
user who declines gets a service with an invisible notification),
whether audio focus arrives while `oto`/oboe holds the output, whether
the lock screen picks up the session, and whether cover art decoded
from a `MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE` path is readable by the service.