Model the AlertBox and standalone ticker with shared settings; scene tickers render the in-memory active and queued events without saving history. Keep AlertBox content active-event-only.
Ref: https://obsproject.com/kb/obs-studio-overview
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.
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.
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.
Creator ruling 2026-10-26: the remaining programming work is far from
release and a complete UX redesign is about to start, so packaging,
signing, installer and updater decisions would be chasing scope that is
about to move. The task is deferred, not cancelled.
Recorded what is frozen: TASK 48 items 6-8, the signing decision, the
updater choice (Velopack's deletion left no update path, and
StorePackagingTests currently vetoes a new one), and the route question
itself - ai.md says the Store route is dead (direct + Steam) while
TASKS.md/task-48/HANDOFF still read Store MSIX + Store IAP. That
contradiction is to be settled in ONE sweep at the revisit, not patched
piecemeal now.
The manifest the Store route needs, and a real package built from it.
Packaging/Package.appxmanifest is a full-trust packagedClassicApp: EntryPoint
Windows.FullTrustApplication, uap10:TrustLevel=mediumIL,
uap10:RuntimeBehavior=packagedClassicApp, the rescap runFullTrust capability, and
webcam + microphone DeviceCapabilities. That combination is what lets the packaged
app launch the bundled ffmpeg as a child process and write to the user's profile;
an appContainer package would virtualise the recordings folder instead. x64 only,
en-US only (policy 10.7).
Packaging/Assets/ carries the four tiles the packer requires, generated from the
app's own Assets/llamacasty-logo.jpg by scripts/make-store-logos.py - listing art
and app art cannot drift.
scripts/package-msix.sh publishes Release win-x64 self-contained into
artifacts/msix-stage (a RID-less publish would copy every RID's ONNX native),
stages the manifest as AppxManifest.xml + Assets, and runs the Windows SDK's
makeappx. MSIX_PFX/MSIX_PFX_PASSWORD sign a package for a local test install; the
Store signs submissions. artifacts/ is gitignored.
First real package: artifacts/LlamaCasty.msix, 159 MB, 509 files, 'Package
creation succeeded'.
Schema traps found by packing (makeappx reports one error at a time):
Square310x310Logo and Wide310x150Logo are NOT uap:VisualElements attributes - they
live on uap:DefaultTile.
Guard: StorePackagingTests.The_package_manifest_declares_full_trust_camera_and_
microphone - identity/architecture, the full-trust application element, the three
capabilities, no appContainer VALUE (not the file text: the manifest's own comment
says the word), en-US only, and every referenced logo present.
Full suite 438/438, 0 warnings. Cold-start smoke test after the Velopack removal:
MainWindow loaded, no exceptions.
The creator's ruling (2026-09-27) is Store MSIX + Store IAP, so Microsoft delivers
the updates and the in-app updater is gone rather than parked. This is a
COMPLIANCE action, not cleanup: the Velopack bootstrap downloaded and executed a
payload, which Store policy 10.2.2 does not permit.
Three edit sites, as planned: the PackageReference in ytLive.csproj, 'using
Velopack;' in App.xaml.cs, and the bootstrap block. The self-hosted DigitalOcean
update-URL droplet dies with it.
Guard: ytLive.Tests/StorePackagingTests.cs - the ONE test asserts the app project
references no updater package (Velopack/Squirrel/NetSparkle/AutoUpdater/WinSparkle)
and that no app source file uses the updater API. The check matches CODE (a using
directive, a type usage), not a bare word, so a file's prose may still name what it
deliberately does not do.
Smoke-tested after the removal: MainWindow loaded, 0 exceptions in startup.log.
Full suite 437/437, 0 warnings.
The creator (2026-10-09): 'we need some sort of log-rotation so that we don't
inadvertently fill up a user's drive.' startup.log was uncapped - 23MB and growing
every few seconds, because FfmpegEncoder logs every non-progress ffmpeg stderr line.
The policy lives in a new Helpers/LogRotation.cs as a pure function over a path
(RollIfNeeded(logPath, maxBytes, retainedFiles)), so AppLog's 156 call sites keep
their surface and the rule is testable on its own. At 5MB the live file rolls to
startup.1.log and one rolled copy is kept - the FILE SET is bounded, not just the
live file, so a long stream cannot grow the log without limit. A failed rotation
degrades to the old behaviour instead of taking the app down.
Pattern reference (cited): Serilog's file sink pairs fileSizeLimitBytes (the cap)
with retainedFileCountLimit (how many rolled files to keep) -
https://github.com/serilog/serilog-sinks-file
Guard: ytLive.Tests/AppLogRotationTests.cs - the ONE test drives the real
AppLog.Write against a temp dir (two internal seams: PathOverride, MaxBytes) and
asserts the roll, the fresh live file, and that after a SECOND roll the directory
still holds exactly startup.log + startup.1.log.
Also fixed a stale catalog row: TASK 12 (master limiter) shipped 2026-08-15 and was
still marked 'Queued'.
The release gate before the repo goes public. Scanned 432 reachable commits (all
branches, 35 tags, the reflog, refs/stash) + the 63 dangling commits git fsck still
holds + every tracked file in the worktree, for Google OAuth client secrets, API
keys/tokens (Polar OAT, ghp_, AKIA, Slack, Stripe, OpenAI), private-key headers,
assigned credentials, and any once-tracked CREDENTIALS.md / OAuthCredentials.cs /
MARCOM.md. Report format is commit + path + rule only - no matched value ever
reaches the screen.
Result: 4 hits, ALL false positives - README.md:79 is the doc snippet's
'ClientSecret = your-client-secret' placeholder, TokenStoreTests.cs:22 is a 9-char
test dummy. Nothing to rotate, no history rewrite. The three secret files were
never tracked.
Also recorded: the repo was ALREADY public when the scan ran (anonymous GET -> 200,
API private=false), so the gate came late - but nothing leaked. The creator still
owns the keep-it-public decision.
Method + verdict in TASKS/task-56-secret-scan.md; the reusable recipe in
MyMistakes.md -> 2026-10-22.
The creator (2026-10-21), on Live -> Layers -> webcam -> Properties:
"why does the drop down under the web cam properties not show the same style for
the border color drop down list box?"
"one of the first things we did was define branding. We established look-and-feel
standards. And yet you keep ignoring these and I'm wondering why"
WHY IT WAS MISSED - the answer the creator is owed.
The TASK 58 sweep had already walked the whole app for un-themed controls and the
border picker STILL was not themed, because the sweep looked for control TYPES
(ComboBox / CheckBox / TextBox) carrying no theme style - and the border picker was
NONE of those. It was a "..." Button whose Click handler built a ContextMenu of
swatches in code. It was never in the sweep's scope, and PropertiesStyleTests.cs
(a type-based guard) could not see it either. A picker that LOOKS like a drop-down
is invisible to a type-based audit; the guard has to ask "is this the app's widget?".
WHAT CHANGED
- The picker is now the app's YtComboBox - the widget the Display and Font pickers
wear - bound to the palette (SelectedElement.BorderColorOptions) with its selection
bound by VALUE (SelectedItem -> BorderColorEntry), because WPF's SelectedValue
matching is ordinal and the palette mixes #FFFFFF and #e94560.
- The closed box shows the swatch + the colour's NAME; the rows show swatch + hex +
name (the rows the creator approved in TASK 60). A ComboBox cannot do that with one
ItemTemplate - WPF copies it into the read-only SelectionBoxItemTemplate - so
Helpers/ClosedBoxTemplateSelector.cs picks by the ContentPresenter's templated
parent: the ComboBox for the closed box, the ComboBoxItem for a row. Verified
against WPF with a throwaway probe, not assumed.
- The swatch is painted by the THEME (Helpers/HexToBrushConverter.cs, registered as
HexToBrush) - the hand-painted SolidColorBrush(Color.FromRgb(...)) in the old
click handler was the exact anti-pattern the theme forbids. The swatch also carries
a 1px #2a3a5e border now, so black and dark swatches are visible on the dark menu
(the follow-up TASK 60 left open).
- The hex field stays (60px, editable): a colour outside the palette can still be
typed, and the drop-down then carries that hex as a NAMELESS entry ("no name" is the
honest answer). The palette's name moved out of TASK 62's TextBlock into the
drop-down's closed box.
- The hand-built menu, its ContextMenu/MenuItem/SolidColorBrush code and
WebcamBorderColorPicker_Click are gone.
MODEL: SceneElement.BorderColorName -> BorderColorEntry (the palette entry for the
current hex, with its name; setting it writes the hex back) + BorderColorOptions (the
palette plus the custom entry), both raised when BorderColor changes.
BorderColorPalette gains EntryFor(hex) and OptionsFor(hex); NameOf delegates.
Guards: ytLive.Tests/BorderColorPickerTests.cs (the ONE test for this change - the
model, the panel, and the REAL widget: with the app's theme style and the panel's own
templates the closed box names the colour and the rows show the hex AND the name).
The TASK 60 guard (BorderColorPaletteTests) was updated because the mechanism it
asserted - a code-built menu - no longer exists; it now guards the new wiring (the
drop-down is bound to the palette and neither the panel nor the code-behind carries a
second list of colours).
Full suite: 435/435 passed, 0 warnings.
The creator (2026-10-21), on Live -> Layers -> webcam -> Properties:
"the Y and H boxes under webcam properties should be the same width as the X and W
boxes and those widths should be fixed to accomodate the max number of possible
digits providing the geometry values"
"also the border color drop drown box content should also include the name of the
color next to the hex value as they in the drop-down list box"
TASK 61 - one fixed width for the four geometry fields.
The row is a DockPanel, and WPF sizes an element to its CONTENT unless it is told
otherwise, while the LAST child of a DockPanel fills the remaining space. So X/W (not
last) were as wide as their text and Y/H (last) stretched across the row - two widths
for the same kind of field. Now all four carry Width="44" and the rows set
LastChildFill="False" (without it the last field ignores its own Width and fills anyway).
44px is the measured width of "-1920" in the app's font at 11px (the largest geometry
value - the master frame is 1920x1080 - plus a sign) plus the field's padding and
border. Docs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.controls.dockpanel.lastchildfill
The guard MEASURES the widest value with WPF's FormattedText instead of asserting a
magic number, so a font change cannot silently make the field too narrow:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.media.formattedtext
TASK 62 - the border field names its colour.
SceneElement.BorderColorName carries the palette's name for the current colour
("Crimson") and is raised when the colour changes; it is EMPTY for a custom hex the
creator typed, because "no name" is the honest answer. BorderColorPalette.NameOf
changed to match (it used to fall back to the hex itself; the TASK 60 test assertion
was updated with it). The hex field keeps a fixed width (60) so the name sits right
next to the hex instead of drifting to the row's far edge - the same trap as TASK 61.
Guards: ytLive.Tests/GeometryFieldWidthTests.cs, ytLive.Tests/BorderColorNameTests.cs
Full suite: 435/435 passed, 0 warnings.
The creator: "under Live->Layers->webcam->Properties->border color: in the drop
down box, the #hex values are good, but add a corresponding color name/label next
to the value."
Each row now reads "#e94560 Crimson" - the hex stays exactly as it was, the
colour's name goes next to it (dimmed #a0a0b0 so the hex reads first), and the
tooltip becomes "Crimson (#e94560)".
The 14 colours were a hard-coded string[] inside the click handler - a list of
bare strings cannot carry a name, and a list hidden in UI code cannot be asserted
on. They now live in Models/BorderColorPalette.cs: NamedColor(Hex, Name) +
BorderColorPalette.All (the single source of truth) + NameOf(hex), which answers
case-insensitively and falls back to the hex for a colour outside the palette.
The picker builds its menu from the catalogue and no longer knows any colour by
heart.
The names are chosen not to collide - the palette has two greens, two blues and
two warm colours: #00FF00 is Lime and #22c55e Emerald, #0000FF is Blue and
#3b82f6 Azure, #FF8800 is Orange and #f59e0b Amber.
Guard: ytLive.Tests/BorderColorPaletteTests.cs - every entry valid + named, no
hex or name repeated, the 14 legacy colours all still offered, NameOf answers,
and the old list is gone from the handler. 433/433 green, 0 warnings.
The creator's ruling on the webcam's properties: a "Shape" title above the
Mirror/Rect row; the drag hint indented under that row "to show parentage";
the same for Geometry, Border Color, Border Thickness; Remove and Blur indented
under Background; Strength indented under Blur.
One rule covers it: a title owns its content and the content is indented one
level (10px) under it - two levels where a title is itself nested (Strength
under Blur under Background). The titles are SemiBold 11px #a0a0b0 like the
ones already there.
The shape also stops being a toggle button that shows the NEXT action ("Round"
when the camera was a rectangle) and becomes a CHOICE: two segment options,
Rect | Circle, with Rect selected by default - which is what the creator asked
for ("Rect should be selected as a default if none exists"). The old
ShapeButtonText is gone.
The mutual exclusion lives in the MODEL: IsRectShape/IsRoundShape on
SceneElement, each setter flipping the shape through ToggleClipShape() (so the
pre-round rect is still stored/restored) and always re-raising, so a refused
write - the vertical Chat layout is rect-only (TASK 57) - makes the UI snap
back instead of sticking. Deliberately NOT a WPF RadioButton group: a group
unchecks its siblings by setting IsChecked in code, which makes WPF drop the
binding (stackoverflow 7376373; the same trap measured in 50980687/57275046).
The Circle option stays hidden where CanToggleClipShape is false, so the circle
is still not offered in the vertical Chat layout.
Guard: ytLive.Tests/PropertiesHierarchyTests.cs - the model half (Rect by
default, pick circle, pick rect, the locked Chat layout refuses the circle) and
the panel half (the Shape title owns both options, the circle is the gated one,
the hint is indented and follows the row, every titled block's content is at
10px, Strength at 20px). 432/432 green, 0 warnings.
The creator asked why the Stream Alerts "Display" drop-down was not in the same
style as the other drop-downs. It was never given the theme's YtComboBox style -
only a hand-painted Background/Foreground. Setting colours changes the paint, not
the template, so WPF still drew the light system ComboBox (grey border, system
arrow, white popup list) on top of the dark panel. The chat Font drop-down was a
copy of the same mistake, and every check box was the light system one.
The sweep of the whole properties panel (then the app):
- ComboBox x2 (chat Font, alert Display) -> YtComboBox, hand-painted colours gone
- TextBox x16 in the properties panel -> YtTextBoxCompact (new, BasedOn YtTextBox:
11px / padding 4,2 - the panel is dense, the full 13px box would double it)
- CheckBox x2 (chat) + x3 (preview broadcast) + x1 (socials dialog) -> YtCheckBox
(new: a 14x14 rounded box + tick path, accent fill when checked)
- the layer-rename field -> YtTextBoxCompact via BasedOn, still borderless
- buttons, pills, sliders: already themed, untouched
The sweep also killed a typo'd foreground (#e0d0e0 for #e0e0e0) and the only
remaining hand-painted colour is the deliberate dimming of the two read-only path
fields.
Guard: ytLive.Tests/PropertiesStyleTests.cs (the ONE Good Dog test) parses the app
XAML and fails if an unstyled drop-down, check box or properties field comes back.
431/431 green, 0 warnings.
The creator's locked table (2026-10-17) gives the Chat scene its own rules in
the 9:16 tier: RECT ONLY - the circle option is not offered - and a size that
is either the normal small tile or ENLARGED to fill one whole 607x540 area
(top or bottom). Unit 1 shipped the per-scene placement; this unit is the Chat
scene's own variant of it.
The rule lives on the MODEL, not on the button:
- Models/SceneElement.cs: ClipShape and ToggleClipShape() are now virtual.
- Models/WebcamSceneConfig.cs: VerticalShapeLocked (set per scene by the VM)
OVERRIDES the ClipShape property, so no writer can slip a circle in - the
toggle, the Shape button and the placement swap all go through it. The lock
is cleared BEFORE the 16:9 layout comes back, so the desktop shape returns.
- ViewModels/MainViewModel.Webcam.cs: CanToggleClipShape (the circle is NOT
offered in the vertical Chat layout - the Shape button disappears, it is not
merely greyed out), IsChatSceneCamera, ResizeWebcamInVerticalTier.
- Models/VerticalCameraLayout.cs: FillsArea (the "enlarged" state, derived -
no new column) and SizeFor - the Chat camera's TWO sizes, the tile or the
whole area, whichever is nearer the requested width, so the resize handle
has two detents instead of any size in between.
- An enlarged camera FILLS the area its centre is in (top or bottom), so
dragging it up/down swaps the areas.
- The Chat camera is auto-tiled like the Live one when the vertical tier is
picked - otherwise the vertical chat stream has no camera at all.
- Controls/PreviewPane.xaml.cs: the resize routes through the VM; the drag
assigns, lets the model clamp into the band, then snaps (so the enlarged
camera can be dragged from the top area to the bottom one).
Test: ytLive.Tests/VerticalChatCameraLayoutTests.cs - the ONE Good Dog test for
the unit: the vertical tier is picked -> the Chat camera comes into the band as
a small RECT tile -> the circle option is not offered and cannot be set even on
the model -> dragged up and enlarged it fills the TOP area exactly -> back to
16:9 the desktop layout is restored exactly and the circle option is offered
again. 430/430 tests pass, 0 warnings.
Research (the creator's table is the established practice, not our invention):
- Streamlabs' vertical guide: "splitting the screen in half horizontally,
placing the camera feed in the top half and the main content on the bottom
(or vice versa) may be the bet", and a just-chatting vertical wants the
camera "to take up most of the screen"
(streamlabs.com/content-hub/post/overlays-vertical-and-horizontal-streaming)
- Bloopbot's vertical overlay docs describe the same per-layer model we use at
scene granularity: "move or resize a layer on Vertical and it stops being
Auto-placed. It keeps the place you gave it, and the horizontal layout is not
touched" (bloopbot.com/docs/vertical-overlays-twitch-dual-format) - our
swap-at-tier-change, stored per scene.
- Landmine recorded: "about the bottom 560 px of the vertical video can be
covered by Twitch's chat and player controls on phones" (Bloopbot) - the Chat
camera's enlarged BOTTOM area may be half-hidden by the platform chrome;
TASK 53's safe-zone work decides that.
Memory in the same commit: ai.md (the Chat rules, the shape lock, the tests),
TASKS.md + TASKS/task-57-vertical-camera-layout.md (TASK 57 complete), HANDOFF.md,
MyMistakes.md (3 recipes: lock the model property not the UI button; two detents
for a discrete size set; the edit tool cannot match an oldString with an em
dash), Models/ViewModels/Controls index rows.
The vertical tier is a centred band crop of the SAME 1920x1080 master (band x
656.25, w 607.5, h 1080), so the 16:9 camera placement (x~1408) falls outside the
cropped window and the creator is simply not in the vertical stream. Each scene
now keeps its own vertical position, size and shape; switching back to 16:9
restores the desktop layout exactly (the creator's locked table, 2026-10-17).
Geometry only - NO render-path change. The preview and the compositor both read
the element's own X/Y/W/H + ClipShape, so the tier switch swaps the LIVE geometry:
- Models/VerticalCameraLayout.cs (new): the pure math - the band, its two 607x540
areas, the six spots (top/bottom x left/centre/right), the 32px inset and the
270x152 default tile (480x270 in the 1080x1920 output) in the bottom-right spot,
the corner the 16:9 default webcam uses.
- Models/WebcamSceneConfig.cs: the vertical placement lives in seven additive
columns (VerticalX/Y/Width/Height/ClipShape/RectWidth/RectHeight; NULL = "this
scene has no vertical placement yet"). The 16:9 layout stays in the old columns
and is parked in the transient Landscape* fields while the vertical tier is
live; Begin/EndVerticalLayout + CommitLiveLayoutToVertical do the swap. The
X/Y/W/H overrides clamp every write into the band - outside it the camera is
invisible in the vertical output.
- Models/SceneElement.cs: X/Y/Width/Height became virtual so the derived element
constrains every writer (drag, resize handle, typed fields) in ONE choke point
instead of three writers each re-implementing the rule.
- ViewModels/MainViewModel.Webcam.cs + .Streaming.cs: IsVerticalTier/VerticalBand,
ResolveVerticalCameraLayout(s) (the tier swap), MoveWebcamInVerticalTier /
SnapWebcamInVerticalTier (the six-spot snap, by the tile's centre),
EnsureVerticalCameraLayout; ApplyStreamQuality is the tier-change hook. The
Live scene gets its small tile automatically on the first vertical switch (the
vertical stream would otherwise have no camera at all); the other scenes keep
their 16:9 placement until the creator drags them into the band.
- Controls/PreviewPane.xaml.cs: the drag/resize route through the VM snap under
the vertical tier instead of free-floating over the master.
Controls/LeftPanel.xaml: the webcam properties gained a Geometry section
(X/Y/W/H) for the manual entry the creator asked for, bound to the LIVE
placement, gated on the VM's IsWebcamSelected (NOT SelectedElement.IsWebcam -
the TASK 51 test finds that panel by binding text and would match twice).
- The store: seven guarded ADD COLUMNs, the INSERT/SELECT extended, and the
X/Y/W/H/ClipShape columns stay the 16:9 layout - while the vertical tier is
live the save writes the parked values there and the live ones into Vertical*.
Test: ytLive.Tests/VerticalWebcamLayoutTests.cs - the ONE Good Dog test. The
vertical tier brings the Live camera INTO the band as a small tile; dragging it to
the top-right lands it top-right inside the band; back to 16:9 the desktop layout
is restored exactly (1408/778/480x270); both placements survive a save + reload.
Full suite 429/429, 0 warnings. LayerReorderPersistenceTests.RealMouseDrag fails
ALONE on a clean tree in this environment - pre-existing flake, proven by stashing
this work, not a regression.
Derivative work: OBS has no built-in per-aspect-ratio layout storage - the
maintainers' answer is "create a second scene and add the scene you want to send
as source" (obsproject.com/forum/threads/161307) - and Streamyard's dual-aspect
guide says the same ("no built-in way to store separate layouts per aspect ratio",
so you rely on manual workarounds and plugins):
https://streamyard.com/blog/dual-aspect-ratio-streaming-tool
Our per-scene, per-tier stored placement, resolved on the tier change, is the
step past both.
Memory in the same commit: ai.md (new section), TASKS.md + TASKS/task-57-*.md
(Unit 1 shipped, Unit 2 = the Chat scene still open), HANDOFF.md, MyMistakes.md
(the per-tier geometry-swap recipe, the binding-text panel trap, the store's
webcam-identity rule) and the Models/Services/ViewModels/Controls index rows.
- Model: Google's official MediaPipe Selfie Segmenter (landscape, Apache-2.0 per model card),
converted to ONNX by tools/selfie-seg/convert_tflite_to_onnx.py (custom op
Convolution2DTransposeBias -> ConvTranspose) and verified against MediaPipe's own runtime
(verify_against_mediapipe.py: max |diff| 5e-5, 100% binary agreement). Embedded resource, 430 KB.
- Services/BackgroundEffects: IPersonSegmenter seam, OnnxPersonSegmenter (onnxruntime 1.31.0 CPU,
never throws), BackgroundEffectProcessor (None passthrough, Remove = alpha mask). Not wired yet.
- Tests: Remove integration test (fake segmenter) + bundled-model contract test vs MediaPipe
reference mask. Full suite 407/408 — the one failure is the documented interactive-desktop flake
RealMouseDrag_OnTheLayerList_PersistsTheReorder (passed in the run before; code path untouched).
- Docs: ai.md reversal + section + licensing guard, THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES 11-12, TASK 51, indexes,
MyMistakes recipe, HANDOFF.
References: obs-backgroundremoval (approach only — ONNX Runtime on CPU, 2 threads; GPL-3.0, no code
used) https://github.com/royshil/obs-backgroundremoval ; MediaPipe image segmenter
https://ai.google.dev/edge/mediapipe/solutions/vision/image_segmenter
The zoom feature shipped without a task record while its index rows carried the
"TASK 51" label — which belongs to the webcam background effects (Remove + Blur).
For an honest catalogue and handoff:
- TASKS/task-52-zoom-box.md: feature provenance (creator-requested), the three
2026-10-08 corrections (loupe -> anchored capture over the full composite drawn
last -> never show the dim shading), shapes, implementation map, tests, DONE.
- TASKS.md: row 52 added (shipped); row 51 reworded — unblocked now that the
zoom build shipped.
- TASK 51 -> TASK 52 in Models/index.md, ViewModels/index.md, and the two code
comments that pointed at the zoom as "TASK 51".
- HANDOFF.md: pre-push readiness notes (5 commits ahead, push-safe).
Right-click now creates a transient ZoomSceneElement at z-index 1 whose pixels are a
genuine 2x magnified sample of the backdrop (live capture under art), composited into
stream/recording like any layer while the output crop stays the tier. All shapes are
centered on the click and clamped to frame; healed on load/scene-create, never persisted,
hidden from the layers list + element template (IsZoomLayer). BuildCompositorOptions is
now internal = always tier crop (test seam). ZoomFrameBuilder is a pure static sampler
(box/2 window centered on the box center, single-slot cache) proven by a banded-backdrop
test; LayerReorderPersistenceTests drag resolves rows by item since the collapsed zoom
row shifts container indices. Also books TASK 51 (webcam background Remove + Blur) and
syncs memory docs (HANDOFF, MyMistakes, indexes). Full suite: 405 passed, 0 warnings.
The pricing ruling landed twice (2026-09-21 one-time, then 2026-09-27 Store IAP
$10/mo + $400 lifetime) and the map never caught up. Six tracked files still told
a future session that billing was Polar and the price was $29/$49. A stale memory
map is worse than a stale comment: it is the file every session trusts, and this
one was actively steering work toward a deleted provider.
MONETIZATION.md (gitignored, so not in this commit) was rebuilt first:
- "Revenue projections" now carries a modelled Year 1 forecast —
pessimistic $4.0K / base $15.4K / optimistic $53.3K net, ~$22K weighted.
Funnel is installs -> 35-45% activate -> 1.5-3% of active users pay.
- Three findings recorded: Year 1 is ~97% lifetime transactions (subs net $392
of $15.4K, so MRR is not a Year-1 planning input); conversion dominates price
(~1pp of conversion = ~$7K net, and ADA 6(h) locks $10 anyway); subscriber
churn moves Year 1 by under $200 and is a Year-2 problem.
- Break-even restated for $400: $25K net = 74 lifetime buyers, not 862.
The price cut the volume requirement ~10x and raised the skill requirement
to match.
- Market sizing willingness-to-pay row rewritten. The 100K-400K TAM was
price-bound to $29-49 and is wrong at $400; revised ~20K-60K, flagged as an
estimate rather than a sourced number.
- Flagged a real contradiction: $500K ARR needs ~4,900 concurrent subscribers,
so the Exit section's ARR multiples do not describe what Years 1-3 produce.
The defensible asset there is lifetime cash flow, not ARR.
Tracked files corrected to match:
- ai.md: paid-delta, pricing and billing bullets rewritten; Polar product id,
org id, LCYT- key prefix and LLAMAFOUNDER/LLAMA50 marked as deleted;
15% share + net-after-tax recorded with the ADA 6(b)(i) citation.
- TASKS.md: catalog row retitled as a teardown; the "still to verify — the
price is not decided" note closed (it contradicted the ruling 20 lines
below it); the OverlayHost "Polar unlocks alerts" open question marked
resolved; Polar file-hosting deliverable removed from the release build.
- task-10: reframed as a teardown. Steps 4-5 marked as surviving, 1-2-3-6-7 as
deleting, 8 as a compliance action (Velopack downloads AND executes, which
Store policy 10.2.2 does not permit).
- task-36 item 5 (license-expiry reminders) struck — no key, no expiry, no
lapse under Store IAP, so there is nothing to remind anyone about.
- Distribution.md 4.2 / 4.4 / 4.5 marked obsolete; 4.5's "already implemented"
corrected, since PolarLicenseService is being deleted rather than shipped.
- README: "one-time license" -> "paid tier".
Historical Polar sections are retained deliberately — the reasoning is reusable
(merchant-of-record, fee comparison), only the conclusions are dead. Each is now
labelled so it cannot be mistaken for the plan.
No code touched.
Store policy 10.2.2 forbids dynamic code inclusion, and this was the only
third-party binary the app ever downloaded and ran. It had already failed in
production: the pin aged out of BtbN's 14-day retention and the download 404'd
on the creator's first real recording attempt (2026-09-01). Bundling kills
that failure class permanently and deletes the startup network dependency.
- scripts/fetch-ffmpeg.sh populates a gitignored ./ffmpeg from a pinned
month-end BtbN LGPL-shared artifact, SHA-256 verified before extraction,
idempotent, FFMPEG_ZIP= override. 135 MB of DLLs in git would tax every
commit on this 9p tree; the URL + hash are the audit trail LGPL §6 wants.
- ytLive.csproj copies ffmpeg\** to output and publish (Always), and a
GuardBundledFfmpeg target fails the BUILD if the folder is missing, so a
fresh clone finds out before a take rather than during one.
- FfmpegLocator loses the downloader, the zip extraction and the
%APPDATA%\ytLlive\tools cache. Order is now bundle -> PATH, deliberately
inverted: a PATH ffmpeg may be a different major version or a GPL build,
and the bundle is what was pinned, license-vetted and tested. A missing
bundle throws loudly; the old "found something on disk" path could satisfy
a missing bundle with a stale copy, and silent drift is the worst failure
mode for a dependency certification inspects.
- ffplay.exe (18 MB) is not shipped; nothing calls it.
- THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt: "downloads" -> "bundled" throughout, and the stale
build tag autobuild-2026-08-09-13-03 — the tag that 404'd — corrected to
autobuild-2026-08-31-13-27 with the exact artifact name and archive hash.
OpenH264 made precise: compiled INTO avcodec-63.dll, no separate binary.
Checked whether other third-party binaries needed bundling: no. e_sqlite3.dll
and WebView2Loader.dll already ship via NuGet into runtimes\win-x64\native\,
OpenH264 is inside avcodec-63.dll, the rest are managed. Two gaps remain that
bundling cannot fix, recorded in the map: the WebView2 Evergreen runtime is a
machine prerequisite (TASK 48 item 2), and Velopack's updater downloads and
executes, so its teardown is a compliance action.
Tests: 16 locator facts, suite 379/379, 0 warnings. The integration test runs
the bundled ffmpeg -version, which is the only assertion that proves the
sibling libav*.dll resolved — presence checks pass with the DLLs missing and a
shared build then fails to start. TheLocatorCarriesNoNetworkCapability keeps
10.2.2 from rotting back.
Analysis: TASKS/research-store-certification.md §4.
The dev multi-instance use case (one instance screen-capturing the other for
marketing/training videos) exposed a real bug. BuildStartPath in
MainViewModel.Recording.cs builds the start name with no dedup:
var name = RecordingFile.BuildStartName(DateTime.Now) + ".mp4";
var path = Path.Combine(folder, name);
Only FinalizeRecordingAsync calls UniquePath. So two instances that start
recording in the same minute computed the identical path
(ty-20260927-1454-0000.mp4) and both ffmpeg processes wrote one file -- a
corrupt take, not an error message.
Creator's fix (2026-09-27): add a millisecond count to the filename timestamp.
New format is ty-<yyyyMMdd>-<HHmm>-<fff>-<hh2mm2>.mp4. Both the start name and
the final name derive from _recordStartTime, so the ffff segment survives the
rename-on-stop and the final name cannot collide with another same-minute take
either. No UniquePath call needed, which keeps the start path a pure function of
the timestamp and the existing collision suffix behaviour intact.
Tests: 2 new (the same-minute guard and the rename-survival guard), 5 existing
assertions updated for the format. RecordingSaveDialogTests' stem fixtures
updated to match. 369/369 pass, 0 warnings.
Note: the first test run reported 367/367 because only ytLive.csproj had been
built -- the stale test DLL never picked up the new tests. The real count is 369.
Reconcile the pending doc edits with the creator's actual ruling, and close the
revenue-share question that was blocking the monthly price.
Verified from the App Developer Agreement v8.10 PDF itself (downloaded and
text-extracted, not a search excerpt). Section 6(b) has only three tiers:
6(b)(i) 15% for Apps and their In-App Products *not listed in* 6(b)(iii);
6(b)(ii) 12% Games-only; 6(b)(iii) 30% for Xbox console apps/games, Xbox
non-subscription IAP, and Windows 8/Phone 8. LlamaCasty is a Windows PC App,
so 6(b)(i) governs BOTH tiers -- there is no subscription surcharge. The
agreement's own changelog (v8.0, Oct 26 2017) states it outright: "implement
the 85/15 revenue share for non-Game subscriptions."
=> $10/mo nets $8.50 (~$102/yr); $400 lifetime nets $340.
Also confirmed: the 15% applies after VAT/GST (Net Receipts definition),
payouts are monthly above a $50 threshold, and no better small-indie rate
exists in the standard terms.
Creator ruling recorded: $10/mo subscription or $400 lifetime, no annual, no
.99. This supersedes the 2026-09-21 one-time $29 -> $49 model.
Two obligations ADA 6(h) attaches to the recurring tier, recorded because they
change its risk profile and are the reason lifetime is the hedge: we must
fulfil the subscription for the entire period as marketed (on breach Microsoft
may refund the full amount plus taxes in its sole discretion), and raising the
price disables auto-renew -- so $10 is effectively locked for the product's life.
Stale facts fixed in the same change rather than appended:
- research-store-certification.md: IARC was 11.11.1/11.11.2 in one table and
10.11.1 in another; corrected to 10.11.x.
- research-store-certification.md: policy 10.8.1/10.8.2 still asserted "Polar
explicitly permitted" and "tick the third-party purchase box". Void now that
Store IAP is the route and Polar is being torn down.
- task-48: the working YouTube demo account (10.3.1) was accidentally dropped
from the certification list during the Store-IAP edit. Restored -- a reviewer
cannot use the app without one.
- MyMistakes.md: the verified-fact-vs-decided-outcome lesson now closes its
loop (the creator did rule the way the research pointed), and records the
over-correction that followed.
Docs-only. No code, no build, no tests.
The creator raised it as instinct: "who hasn't been screwed over cancelling a
sub early to be told that the extra six months remaining are your loss?" Checking
the mechanism confirms it, and worse than expected.
Microsoft's general position: "Digital goods like apps, add-on content,
subscriptions... aren't refundable unless the offer or applicable law states that
you're eligible for a refund." Pro-rated refunds on cancel exist only in Canada,
Denmark, France, Israel, Korea, Turkey (all lengths) and Finland, Germany,
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal (renewals only). Critically: "monthly subscriptions
and initial (pre-renewal) purchases aren't eligible for a prorated refund."
A first-year annual subscriber who cancels in month 2 loses months 3-12, in most
countries, and the developer cannot refund it. That is verbatim the trap the
creator named, so we must not build it. => monthly only. Max loss $10, max
grievance a rounding error, one fewer product to declare, less support surface.
The chargeback argument gets stronger, not weaker: a customer down $89 on an
annual cliff disputes through their bank, which is frozen funds and account risk
against a solo dev. Monthly bounds that at $10.
Also records two rulings:
- No .99 prices. "Let's stop with the x.99 stuff - I find that irritating. Just say:
ten bucks a month." The convention only makes a price look cheaper, which is
incoherent for a brand sold on honesty and no-dark-patterns.
- No feature gating, now argued as revenue rather than taste: the free tier's reach
is the funnel and the branding flash is an ad running inside other people's
content.
Pricing model itself stays OPEN in TASKS.md — $10/mo is the lean, and a lifetime
product (~$300, the hedge against the no-moat renewal problem) is undecided. The
Store revenue share is still unverified: confirm the net, not the list.
MyMistakes.md records the actual error: I had offered "just refund anyone who
asks" as a mitigation without checking who holds the authority to execute it.
Store refunds run through Microsoft, not the developer. The check that followed
is what produced this constraint.
MONETIZATION.md got the full analysis but is gitignored, so it stayed local.
Creator ruling 2026-09-27. Criteria, verbatim: "zero headaches, minimal
maintenance (for me) while still providing accountability and a reasonably
easy upgrade flow." Route A is the only combination where all four are solved
by handing the work to Microsoft rather than to a certificate vendor: $0/yr,
no certificate, no HSM, no annual renewal, no SmartScreen ramp — plus Store
auto-update, Store-side payments/entitlements/refunds/support, and Microsoft
review as the accountability layer.
The rejected options and their reasons stay in research-store-certification.md
§3 so a later session reads the ruling instead of re-deriving it.
What this deletes:
- The entire licensing backend. PolarLicenseService, PolarLicense,
MainViewModel.License.cs (PremiumUrl, customer portal, the OfflineGracePeriod
= 14 days subscription-era artifact, renewal/lapse copy) and the wrong
"Polar unlocks alerts" string all become dead code. IsPremium is derived from
the Store entitlement instead of an HTTP call, which also removes the whole
"network flaky -> app thinks I'm expired" bug class.
- Velopack, the update URL, and the self-hosted droplet — the Store updates.
- Distribution.md's premise: Polar as the distribution backbone, Polar file
hosting, and code signing as our problem. The IP-protection sections (1, 5,
6, 7) still stand and the build-posture ceiling is unchanged.
What does NOT change: the entitlement. Free gets everything; the branding
flash stays the only paid delta. Store IAP changes how IsPremium is obtained,
never what it gates.
Still open, deliberately: the price. The Store revenue share is unverified (do
not assume a percentage), and MONETIZATION.md's $29 -> $49 one-time decision is
re-opened against a fresh instinct toward ~$99/yr. No price encoded yet.
The first code unit is unchanged: bundle ffmpeg (TASK 48 item 1). That clears
the one hard certification gate and fixes a real user-facing 404.
MARCOM.md and MONETIZATION.md were edited too but are gitignored by design, so
those changes stayed local.
The distribution answer existed only in conversation, so every session re-derived
it. It is now in the map, and the route decision is explicitly parked as the
creator's.
new TASKS/research-store-certification.md — Store Policies 7.20 + MSIX packaging:
which policies bind, which don't (and why), cert economics, camera/mic gating
layers, YouTube age + COPPA, the 11.12 UGC judgment call.
Two real defects surfaced, neither fixed (docs-only unit):
- FfmpegLocator downloads an unsigned exe from GitHub and runs it. That is
policy 10.2.2 (dynamic code inclusion) verbatim, and it is the root cause of
the 2026-09-01 404 — the pin aged out of BtbN's 14-day retention on the
creator's first real recording attempt. -> TASK 48 item 1, not
Store-conditional.
- Distribution.md:318 recommended a $400+/yr EV cert for a SmartScreen bypass
Microsoft removed in March 2024. Fixed; had it shipped it would have cost
$400+/yr to buy what $150 buys.
Also new: TASKS/task-48 (checklist, carved out of TASK 36 item 6) and
TASKS/task-49 (chat profanity filter, not blocked). ai.md gains the durable
invariants — full trust or recording breaks silently, chat is rendered never
stored — plus a correction to the FFmpeg locator section. MyMistakes.md records
the lesson: a policy citation is a claim about scope, not just text.
MARCOM.md got the privacy-copy guard but is gitignored by design, so that edit
stays local and did not travel here.
The creator confirmed the clip fix ("the video plays now"), then asked where the
scrolling text was — it was invisible, for a structural reason. AlertTickerFrame
existed only as a frame-pump callback blitted into the OUTPUT; PreviewPane.xaml had
no element for it, because the strip is master-width and global, not a Source, so it
cannot ride a per-element Image. Nothing was wrong in the renderer: there was no
consumer in the preview. Same class of defect as the missing IsAlertBox trigger, one
layer up (MyMistakes RULE 5/6).
- tickerPreviewSink on AlertOverlayLayer, published from RefreshAlertPreviews() so it
is always the UI thread; MainViewModel.AlertTicker writes it into one reused
WriteableBitmap bound to a new global AlertTickerElement, mirroring SocialBarElement.
- Source.AlertDisplayMethod + panel "Display" selector: TickerScroll / Flash / Solid.
Flash pulses 0.5s on / 0.5s off for the whole alert; Solid is centred and still.
- The marquee was also unreadable: a fixed 140px/s took ~17s per pass, so a 10s alert
showed the text once, entering from the right and never crossing. Paced in reads per
alert instead (TickerReadsPerAlert = 3 inside the alert's own length, speed derived
from it) — never px/s. Research (websearch: how do OBS/Streamlabs/StreamElements
alert boxes present announcement timing?) settled the unit: Streamlabs exposes "Alert
Duration: choose how long your alert stays on your stream" and "Text Delay", never a
scroll-speed slider (https://support.streamlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/52499995174299-Setting-up-Your-Streamlabs-Alerts).
Run is phase-started half a frame in so the first frame isn't blank.
- Persistence: AlertDisplayMethod INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 via the idempotent
table_info migration, appended LAST in the SELECT because the Source reader is
positional (GetInt32(32..34)) — a mid-list insert would silently shift a neighbour.
Tests: 15 new facts (suite 339/339). RealApp STA host: the pane draws the strip and
collapses at alert end; the layer publishes a real 1920x48 frame for all three methods
and nothing when the ticker is off; three passes counted in 10s by the pill's leading
edge resetting (a seamless marquee never blanks, so an empty frame cannot count a pass);
Solid byte-identical at every moment; Flash on for half of each second; the panel shows
and writes back the choice; the DB round-trips all three alert fields together.
Incidental finding: a bound ItemsSource ComboBox in LeftPanel.xaml broke
LayerReorderPersistenceTests.RealMouseDrag (that test injects PHYSICAL mouse input, so a
load-time re-measure moves the rows out from under the cursor). Rewritten as inline
ComboBoxItems, the shape the chat Font selector already uses in that panel. Recorded as
MyMistakes RULE (8).
Four builds (89/90 + two) burned proving the alert video was PERFECT: real h264
1280x720, 240 frames decoded, alert audio in the live mix, and the shipped asset
byte-identical (md5 0ee1f496…) to the creator's llamacasty-dancingLlama-thankyou.mp4
with every sampled frame full bright content. Build 90's new diagnostics then showed
the frame reaching BOTH consumers every second for the whole clip —
`Alert preview: frame=680x200 a255` and `Output resolver: frame 680x200
playing=True` — an opaque, correctly-sized frame, handed over and never seen.
Root cause: Controls/PreviewPane.xaml keeps the per-element Image Collapsed unless a
DataTrigger fires, and there was no IsAlertBox trigger (only IsImageSource / IsChatBox /
IsWebSource / IsWebcam). The alert box's Image was therefore Collapsed forever. Chat
boxes rendered because they HAVE a trigger — that asymmetry is the whole clue, and it
is why removing/re-adding the layer could never fix it.
Fix: an IsAlertBox DataTrigger beside the IsChatBox one.
Two Good Dog tests, because the existing fakes had been hiding this:
- AlertBoxPreviewVisibilityTests (red `Expected: Visible / Actual: Collapsed`, now
green) drives the real MainWindow + PreviewPane and asserts the bound Image is
Visible — the first alert test that crosses the XAML at all.
- AlertClipOutputTests is the first test in the repo to run a REAL codec: pinned ffmpeg
generates a clip, the real AlertClipDecoder + AlertOverlayLayer + SceneCompositor
composite it, and the box rect must be a colourful picture that DIFFERS from idle. It
passed while the feature was broken in the app — which is exactly why it was needed:
it exonerated decode+layer+compositor and pointed the hunt at the last hop.
Also keeps the two once-per-second alert diagnostics (resolver + preview) that settled
it, pending the creator's call on whether to keep them.
Notes: the pinned BtbN ffmpeg has no libx264, so the test clip is -c:v mpeg4.
SceneCompositor.Render fills its base with opaque black, so the test compares against an
idle render rather than counting non-zero bytes. MediaSource has the same missing trigger
in PreviewPane.xaml — left unfixed as out of scope, noted in HANDOFF.
Full suite 324/324. Lesson recorded in MyMistakes.md rule (5): a producer that hands over
a correct frame has still delivered nothing — when output arrives and the user still sees
nothing, stop auditing the producer and audit the consumer's VISIBILITY.
The 12:35 live session proved the decoder healthy (frames=240 audioChunks=156
failed=False both clips, alert audio in the mix at peakMix 0.277→0.733) yet the
creator still saw 'no video plays / you lost the video'. Root cause: pacing,
not decode. AlertClipDecoderFor built the decoder with no frameRateProbe, so
RunAsync computed frameDuration = TimeSpan.Zero and RunVideoAsync's pace step
was dead code — all 240 frames of the 10s clip dumped through the pipe in the
first ~1-2s (130MB as fast as ffmpeg read), then the box froze on the LAST
frame while audio chunk-paced its real-time ~7.8s. Reads exactly like a dead
decoder on screen. The media path already wired this seam
(MainViewModel.cs:308); the alert factory never supplied one.
Derivative fix (media/decoder plumbing, cited in broad consensus of players):
pass FfmpegFrameRateProbe into the per-play alert decoder exactly like
MediaVideoSource does. Good Dog:
AlertClipDecoderTests.AlertClipDecoder_PacesVideoFramesToTheProbedFrameRate —
real AlertClipDecoder via the fake-process/fake-probe/delay-recorder seam;
red on the old factory (zero pacing delays), green with the probe (one ~10ms
delay per frame at 100fps). Full suite 321/322, one known-env flake
(RealMouseDrag reorder). Docs in this commit: task-47 addendum,
MyMistakes.md (a decoder that drops data faster than wall-clock looks
identical to a dead one), HANDOFF rewrite.
Routing and ruling both good: 'procs in the chat windows but nothing in the alert box'
with zero exceptions — every failure stage was silent by design (Debug.WriteLine-only
preview catch, bare catch{} in RunAsync firing Completed regardless). A decode run that
starts but yields neither a frame nor an audio chunk left _clip != null with
_latestClipFrame == null, so RenderClipFrame returned null forever: the box stayed
transparent for the whole alert and the six-animation fallback (which only ran on
setup-time throws) never fired.
Fix: AlertOverlayLayer.Advance gives a started clip a NoFrameFallbackSeconds (1.0s)
grace — produce no frame AND no audio inside it and the clip is torn down, _elapsed
resets, and the SAME alert continues as the animation branch (never blank, never drained
early). Diagnostics stop the lying silence: BeginClip logs box id/path/size + setup
failures; AlertClipDecoder.RunAsync logs frame/chunk end-state and the exception it used
to swallow.
Good Dog test: SilentDecoder_FallsBackToTheAnimationAfterTheNoFrameGrace (transparent
inside grace, disposed past it, animation renders, drains to idle).
Reference: alert playback must degrade to its fallback on dead-air, never vanish —
same contract as every player/booth failure budget (e.g. OBS source fallbacks).
https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/source-visibility-fallback.187383/
gramps