The site said "Coming soon to Steam" while the app docs still said direct download plus
winget primary with Steam parked. One of them had to move, and the creator's ruling is
Steam exclusive: a free app on Steam with the paid edition as a Steam DLC, and the
$10/month plan sold off-Steam by Polar.
Records the constraint that shapes the code, not just the prose:
- Steamworks requires in-app purchases to use the Steam Wallet (Microtransactions doc,
quoted in commercial.md), so the monthly is *stated*, never *sold*, inside a Steam
build; the lifetime is plain DLC bought on the store page and read with BIsDlcInstalled.
- Entitlement is `steamDlcOwned || polarKeyValid`, both resolving to one OutputProfile.
steam_api64.dll ships beside the exe and is a functional dependency, not the rejected
"IP protection" native DLL — without it DLC ownership cannot be read. Launched without
Steam, the app falls back to the free profile rather than refusing to start.
- Signing is moot: Steam installs never meet SmartScreen. Artifact Signing stays on the
shelf for the day a non-Steam download exists. Year-one fixed cost is ~$115.
- The exe rename must land before the first depot upload — Steamworks warns about
renaming a live exe.
Distribution.md is rewritten to SteamPipe mechanics (publish output, depot, steamcmd,
DLC wiring, clean-account purchase/refund test). product.md, decisions.md (a new
"Steam exclusive" entry with every dead vector), TASKS.md (Steamworks entitlement row,
Steam packaging row), ai.md, index.md and the TASK 48 banner follow. MyMistakes.md gains
the Steam rules that cost real time today: installs skip SmartScreen, updates are free,
the Wallet rule, and the recurring-billing caveat.
Four things derived this session superseded what the plan said twenty-four hours earlier,
and the docs are corrected where each one died:
**Licensing needs no server.** Polar's customer-portal endpoints authenticate on the key
itself plus the public organization_id; the org access token is only needed to create
products. Channel binding rides in `conditions: {channel_id}`, re-checked on every
validate — so the "claim page" (a hosted OAuth flow that wrote the UC id onto the key)
and the key database it implied are deleted. Device management, key rotation and
subscription auto-revocation are Polar's; four states, one lease, no callback endpoint.
**Signing is deferred until two subscribers.** It never removes the day-one SmartScreen
warning (EV's instant-bypass died in 2024), so buying it before revenue buys only the
publisher line. Renamed to Azure Artifact Signing, $9.99/mo Basic, and it requires a
paid Azure subscription. Year-one fixed cost drops from ~$135 to ~$15.
**The Store account is free.** Microsoft waived the $19 individual fee and removed the
$99 company fee in May 2026, which makes the Store the only zero-cost route to a
Microsoft-signed install — the free answer to SmartScreen, noted beside the paid one.
**Support is a filter, not a promise.** Email, best effort, no SLA, refunds on request
without argument; no training service, no helpdesk. A repeated question becomes a
training video on @llamacasty, which is content and monetization instead of a ticket.
GitHub issues on the releases repo are the deliberate friction.
Also settled: binaries live in a second Gitea repo (`llamacasty-releases`) push-mirrored
to a public GitHub repo — issues and assets public, code private, one publish direction
(a git mirror carries refs, not GitHub Release assets); `@llamacasty` is
standard-verified with intermediate features, so live streaming, >15 min uploads and
custom thumbnails work today and no SIM or ID is needed; and OAuth comes out of Testing
mode by publishing the app (100-user lifetime cap, no 7-day token death).
TASKS.md now opens with the four-day surge slice — artifact shape, output gate,
entitlement seam, real-machine day — because those are what the first public release
waits on. HANDOFF.md rewritten. MyMistakes.md gains the Polar recipe and the
"verify means three different things" entry. MARCOM.md gains the support→content loop
and the surface roles.
The commercial plan was spread over five documents written in five different weeks,
and they contradicted each other: product.md sold the Store, decisions.md called the
Store dead then re-opened, Distribution.md (736 lines) still described Polar as a
download host, MARCOM.md quoted "no subscription" next to a paid tier, and README.md
promised "free forever". An outsider could not tell what ships.
docs/ai/commercial.md is now the only place money is decided: free = whole app at a
921,600 px / 30 fps output profile covering the recording as well as the stream; Pro =
$10/mo or $400 lifetime through Polar, key bound to the buyer's YouTube channel ID via
a claim page, 2 activations, 7–14 day lease with offline grace, fail closed, never
downgrade a running stream; one portable zip + winget primary, Steam and the Store
parked; Azure Trusted Signing (~$9.99/mo), no EV; Founding 200 promo; ~$135/yr costs;
anti-piracy posture and what is permanently rejected.
Everything else now points at it instead of restating it:
- product.md — money sections replaced with pointers; packaging rewritten to
winget-first, Store parked; signing updated to Trusted Signing.
- decisions.md — graveyard with cause of death for free-forever, the Store ordering,
the updater, and the 2026-10-30 reversal of the quality-ceiling rejection.
- Distribution.md — rewritten to release mechanics only (artifact, GitHub Releases,
winget manifest, signing, checklist, takedown): 736 → 120 lines.
- TASKS.md — TASK 54 rewritten, TASK 48's route settled, TASK 10 superseded, five new
rows (entitlement seam, output-profile gate, licence UI, system messages, packaging).
- README.md — "free forever" replaced with the real split.
- capture.md — obs-backgroundremoval is GPL-3.0 and so licence-INCOMPATIBLE since the
proprietary EULA; the old "compatible" line was falsified by that change.
- TASKS/task-10, task-48, task-51, task-54 — superseded-banner at the top of each, so
none of them reads as current policy.
- HANDOFF.md — rewritten: plan settled, next code unit is the entitlement seam.
MARCOM.md and MONETIZATION.md (gitignored) were corrected in place: policy pointer at
the top of each, the flash removed from every live claim, the Polar fee break-even
corrected to ~$900/mo, and the projections flagged as written against a dead model.
TASKS.md 467 → 66 lines: one line per live item, detail stays in TASKS/
task-*.md. The old catalogue (63 rows of paragraph status prose plus the
historical narration) is preserved verbatim as TASKS/archive.md — a
2026-10-29 snapshot, not the live queue. The "out of product" list and every
retired decision moved to docs/ai/decisions.md with cause of death.
HANDOFF.md 440 → 40 lines, and it is now OVERWRITTEN, not appended: branch,
what's in flight, next action, live landmines, pending creator checks. History
belongs to git log; the previous handoff is reachable at ee3c592:HANDOFF.md.
docs/ai/decisions.md (new) collects what no longer governs: the paid tier and
its pricing, Polar, Store IAP, the Store route and why it died, the deleted
Velopack updater, signing economics, the retired monetization ideas, and the
permanent out-of-product list.
Facts that lived in the old ai.md "Current limitations" section were re-homed
rather than dropped with the router rewrite: OAuth/DPAPI/session behaviour →
docs/ai/youtube-api.md; paths, persistence and the Google project number →
docs/ai/environment.md.
verify.sh caps now cover all four always-read files (AGENTS 210, ai 100,
HANDOFF 40, TASKS 120).
Docs-only unit: scope-check run, no build.
ai.md 228 → 64 lines. It now carries only: what the product is, the build
commands, the architecture table, a "where the truth lives" table, and a
pointer to HANDOFF. No narrative, no status, no duplicated invariants.
AGENTS.md (195 lines) is now the single always-read file:
- the 20 invariants that break output, wipe user data, or ship a legal/trust
breach — one line each, pointing at the doc that explains it (they replace
110 lines of invariant stubs that duplicated docs/ai/*.md verbatim)
- Response style + No-Fluff Mode moved in from ai.md (rules belong in the rules file)
- onboarding is now: HANDOFF → ai.md router → the ONE docs/ai file → dir index;
TASKS.md is read when the question is "what's next", not to write code
- memory rides with the change but is no longer a unit of its own; HANDOFF is
≤40 lines and overwritten, never appended
Anti-rebloat gate: scripts/verify.sh gains step 1/4, a doc-budget check
(AGENTS ≤210, ai ≤100; HANDOFF/TASKS caps land with the queue trim). A commit
that pads a capped file instead of moving detail fails the gate.
schema.md and docs/index.md corrected for the new roles and reading order.
Docs-only unit: scope-check run, no build.
ai.md 1,308 → 228 lines. No prose rewritten: every block was moved as-is so
nothing could be lost in translation, then replaced by a pointer.
New files:
- docs/ai/environment.md — LAN/SSH + Gitea push recipe, Windows dotnet
build/run, test-suite map, hermetic real-MainWindow test rule
- docs/ai/product.md — brand/naming, AI transparency, GPL licensing
prohibitions, free-forever monetization, auth/account assumptions,
packaging & distribution
- docs/ai/youtube-api.md — go-live ordering, the broadcast-binding fix, the
private-only lock, health parsing, end-stream pre-flight, Test mode,
chat insert shape
- docs/ai/overlays.md — social bar, native alert box (animations, clip,
ticker), chat box conventions
- docs/ai/ui-surface.md — control surface, scene strip, preview rail,
hotkeys, broadcast drawer, toasts, transitions, brand logo, launch
geometry, theme/properties conventions
ai.md keeps the response/derivation rules, the architecture table, the four
existing invariant stubs, and one pointer per moved subsystem.
docs/ai/index.md routes every file with a "read when" column.
References falsified by the move were fixed in the same commit: AGENTS.md
build note → environment.md → Run, and the "Related" footers in
frame-pipeline.md / output.md / capture.md now point at the owning files.
Docs-only unit: scope-check run, no build (no source touched).
Unit 3. Verbatim move of 'FFmpeg locator', 'Live encoder + RTMP push',
'Local recording' and 'Live audio capture' into docs/ai/output.md, grouped as
encoder / recording / audio with a 'Related' footer.
ai.md's stub keeps the decisions that must not be re-litigated or rediscovered:
ffmpeg is bundled (never download/fetch; no-network test), args pure and no -re,
probe order NVENC->QSV->AMF->OpenH264 and never libx264, REC/ON-AIR radio-
exclusive by creator ruling, a modal's falsy result must never fall through into
its side effect, full StopStream teardown on every failure, audio pipe closes
BEFORE the video pump, and honest-by-measurement audio (true dBFS meters,
SpeechLeveler + -1 dBFS limiter, live Func gains).
- ai.md Services row and one 'FFmpeg locator section above' pointer repointed;
MyMistakes.md dead-Pin entry repointed.
- docs/ai/index.md gains the output.md row.
ai.md 1,558 -> 1,289 lines. No source touched; no push.
Unit 2 of slimming the mandatory read. Verbatim move again - the four capture
blocks leave ai.md unchanged in content, and one stub carries the law.
- docs/ai/capture.md: 'Screen backdrop capture', 'Webcam capture', 'Webcam
background effects' and 'Vertical (9:16) tier camera placement', byte-
identical, grouped under backdrop / webcam / vertical headings, with a
'Related in ai.md' footer.
- ai.md stub keeps: the locked-Background model and NormalizeBackgrounds;
ActiveBackgroundImage is fed by static art only (2026-08-23 regression);
window:/picker: keys are session-scoped and a live pin beats auto-detect;
the settled WinRT interop paths (TryGetDataUnsafe, from-DXGIDevice); the
VideoFrame seam, own-catch subtype ladder and no fallback camera; one app-
level webcam identity with live-lock attainability; CameraManager as the one
effects processing point with per-session mask smoothing; geometry-only
vertical tier and the model-level rect lock.
- docs/ai/index.md gains the capture.md row; Services/index.md (2) and
TASKS/task-38-window-backdrop.md repointed.
ai.md 1,975 -> 1,558 lines. No source touched; no push.
ai.md is the mandatory read every session; at 2,702 lines / ~64k tokens it
costs the whole subsystem history even when the task never touches it. This
is a verbatim move, not a compression - nothing is deleted and each stub is
written from the moved text.
- docs/ai/frame-pipeline.md: 'Frame cadence', 'Per-element composite timing +
scene dump', 'What the first instrumented take said', 'Render budget',
'Scene compositor' and 'Live frame pipeline', byte-identical, plus a short
'Related in ai.md' footer and two stale 'below' pointers corrected.
- ai.md keeps two stubs carrying the invariants that must not be missed
(overlay on every render path, VideoFrame.Epoch, StripPool threads,
Release-only render numbers; arrival-stamped rawvideo, non-blocking submit,
stop order, burned _outputIndex judge) and links the new file.
- docs/ai/index.md + docs/index.md route the split; schema.md inventory lists
the new tier.
- 4 index-row references and 2 TASKS.md anchors repointed; ai.md's Services
row too.
Measured: ai.md 63.6k -> 47.1k tokens, 2,702 -> 1,975 lines. Progressive
disclosure per schema.md convention 5. No source touched; no push.
gramps