TASK 4 audio follow-up: game audio bar + mic status dot + always-on capture — the footer's second audio control (desktop/game, a mirror of the mic bar: meter + mute + volume) appears only while a full-screen game is producing sound (IGameAudioDetector seam + GameAudioHysteresis: show ~500ms of fullscreen+sound, hide ~1s after leaving fullscreen, silence never hides an active bar; VM polls on a 250ms timer); capture now runs for the app's lifetime so both meters preview live (started at startup via StartMicCaptureAsync, disposed in Shutdown — no longer go-live driven); MIC label is a button with a status dot (Models/MicStatus: green via the source Started event, yellow = mic problem, red = no device); PickMicrophone swaps the live device immediately via AudioMixer.RestartMic; fixed a latent ?.Invoke(meter.Push(...)) short-circuit that skipped the meter update when nothing subscribed — 167 tests passing, 0 warnings

Services/Audio/WasapiLoopbackAudioSource.cs

@@ -4,12 +4,14 @@ namespace ytLive.Services.Audio;
 
 /// <summary>
 /// Captures the user's desktop/game audio (TASK 4 ship step 4) via WASAPI
-/// loopback on the default render device. Starts/stops with go-live only.
+/// loopback on the default render device. Runs for the app's lifetime so the
+/// game audio bar stays live in preview.
 /// </summary>
 public sealed class WasapiLoopbackAudioSource : IAudioSource
 {
     private WasapiLoopbackCapture? _capture;
 
+    public event Action? Started;
     public event Action<AudioSample>? SampleReady;
     public event Action<Exception>? Failed;
 
@@ -24,6 +26,7 @@ public sealed class WasapiLoopbackAudioSource : IAudioSource
             _capture.DataAvailable += OnDataAvailable;
             _capture.RecordingStopped += OnRecordingStopped;
             _capture.StartRecording();
+            Started?.Invoke();
         }
         catch (Exception ex)
         {