# TASK 32 — Stream resilience (queued 2026-09-01 — merges the orphaned TASK 2 resume clause into the pills/signs architecture)

> Catalog: [`TASKS.md`](../TASKS.md) — status and requirements live here.


**Goal:** a dropped stream heals itself when physically possible, tells the truth when it isn't, and
gets the creator back on air in one click. The ON-AIR sign + primary button in the top bar are the
surface — they already mean "reality" (pills = intent, lights = reality, TASK 18/30); reality just
isn't two-state. Resumption of a completed broadcast is explicitly **out of scope** (impossible via
the API — creator ruling 2026-09-01): no lying in the copy.

**Slices (one integration test each, in order):**

1. ☐ **Blip retry** — app-side encoder restart: push dies while live (ProcessFailed / stdin
   backpressure death) → bounded-backoff relaunch (2s/5s/10s, N attempts) against the cached
   constant reusable-stream ingest URL. Success = push running again while the broadcast is still
   live; viewers never know. Fixes the map's stale "ffmpeg does reconnect" claim (corrected
   2026-09-01: reconnect flags are input-side only). Test: fake process fails once then starts →
   pump recovers without surfacing to the VM.
2. ☐ **Measured grace + the sign** — while the push is dead, escalate the existing health poll
   (30s → ~5s). ON-AIR dot goes **amber "RECONNECTING"** with a mm:ss countdown to the observed
   YouTube cutoff; the grace length is a **measured, pinned constant** — probe it on a real private
   test stream, cite the observation (spin-guard rule; do NOT invent a number). Poll reports the
   broadcast `complete` → dot **red "OFF AIR"**, primary button relabels **"● Back on air"** and
   pulses. Test: fake status provider drives the dot through live → reconnecting → cut-off.
3. ☐ **One-click Back on air** — the relabeled button fires the existing go-live path with saved
   `Broadcast.*` + cached stream, dialog skipped: new broadcast, new VOD (accepted cost, stated
   in-product). Test: seeded saved form + fake stream service → click creates + pushes, no dialog.
4. ☐ **Crash-safe recording** — fragmented MP4 on the record block (`-movflags
   frag_keyframe+empty_moov+default_base_moof`): plain MP4's trailing moov atom means a power loss
   kills the WHOLE file. Rename-on-stop unchanged. Closes the TASK 18 "MKV as an option" design-note
   remnant (fragmented MP4 chosen over MKV: single container, YouTube-upload-native — verify player/
   editor tolerance, cite the research). Test: `FfmpegArgs` emits the movflags only on the record block.
5. ☐ **Pre-flight** — before broadcast insert, one TCP probe to the ingest host:1935 (~2s timeout).
   Unreachable → Error toast, no insert, no ghost broadcast ("check VPN/network"). The "forgot the
   VPN" story, solved as prevention instead of recovery. Test: fake probe failure aborts go-live before any API call.

### Design decisions

- **The sign is the status, the button is the action** — no new chrome, no log lines, no spinners.
- **Honest windows:** countdown = observed grace; at zero we say OFF AIR, we don't pretend to reconnect.
- **Why us > incumbents:** constant reusable stream + persisted form make retry/restart cheap; OBS
  shows a reconnecting log line and Streamlabs silently dies.