130 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
130 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
# headroom
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Automatic loudness and per-app volume control for PipeWire, in Rust.
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Headroom puts a per-application audio safety net between noisy sources
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(browsers, voice chat, random video) and your speakers, while leaving
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the things you *don't* want compressed (music players, games, DAWs)
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untouched.
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- **Hard −0.1 dBTP ceiling on the processed route**, with proper
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inter-sample-peak handling, enforced inline so the contract holds
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regardless of control-plane state. Streams routed `bypass` ride the
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real sink directly and are not in scope of the contract — that's the
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trade-off that makes the per-app exclusion useful.
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- **Per-app exclusion** with profile-driven rules.
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- **Layer A per-app level control** (peak + RMS detector → smoothed
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`channelVolumes` writes) for taming individual streams without
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touching the bus path. Zero added signal-path latency; safe to use
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on bypass-routed streams.
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- **Single binary** daemon + CLI, controlled over a Unix-domain socket
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with a documented JSON wire protocol (see [`IPC.md`](IPC.md)).
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- **First-party Rust crate** (`headroom-client`) for programmatic use;
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third-party clients (Qt panels, status bars, …) target the wire
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protocol directly.
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- **Live profile reload** — edit a TOML file in
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`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/headroom/profiles/` and the daemon picks up
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changes within ~500 ms; the audio thread doesn't glitch.
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See [`PLAN.md`](PLAN.md) for the full design and roadmap.
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## Status
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Alpha. The signal chain (AGC, compressor, two-tier limiter, Layer A
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per-app), the routing engine (explicit-link enforcement, sink hotplug,
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sticky default sink), the IPC server with topic subscriptions, the
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`headroom monitor` TUI, and live profile reload all work end-to-end.
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Packaging exposes a systemd user unit and Nix modules. What's missing
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is real-world soak time on multi-rate / Bluetooth setups and other
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distros' init systems.
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## Installing
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### Nix (flake)
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This repo is a flake; the daemon plus its systemd user unit and the
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canonical profiles are exposed as a package.
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```sh
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nix run github:atagen/headroom -- daemon # one-shot run
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nix profile install github:atagen/headroom # add to $PATH
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```
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For **Home Manager**, add the flake as an input and enable the module:
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```nix
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{
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inputs.headroom.url = "github:atagen/headroom";
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# In your Home Manager configuration:
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imports = [ inputs.headroom.homeModules.default ];
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services.headroom.enable = true;
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}
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```
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The module symlinks the shipped profiles into
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`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/headroom/profiles/`, drops the systemd user unit
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into the user's services dir, and the unit starts after PipeWire and
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WirePlumber come up. `services.headroom.extraProfiles` lets you add
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your own.
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For **NixOS** (system-wide binary install + systemd-user discovery):
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```nix
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{
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inputs.headroom.url = "github:atagen/headroom";
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# In your NixOS configuration:
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imports = [ inputs.headroom.nixosModules.default ];
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programs.headroom.enable = true;
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}
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```
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Then any user can `systemctl --user enable --now headroom`.
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### Other distros (manual)
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```sh
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cargo install --path crates/headroom-cli # or: cargo build --release
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# Profiles
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mkdir -p ~/.config/headroom/profiles
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cp profiles/*.toml ~/.config/headroom/profiles/
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# systemd user unit (edit the ExecStart path to point at your binary)
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install -Dm644 contrib/systemd/headroom.service \
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~/.config/systemd/user/headroom.service
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sed -i "s|@bindir@|$(dirname "$(command -v headroom)")|" \
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~/.config/systemd/user/headroom.service
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systemctl --user daemon-reload
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systemctl --user enable --now headroom
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```
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## Usage
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Once the daemon is running:
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```sh
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headroom status # JSON snapshot — sinks, streams, active profile
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headroom profile list # available profiles
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headroom profile use night # activate one
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headroom monitor # full-screen TUI (bus gauges + per-stream)
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headroom monitor --json meters # line-delimited JSON, for scripting
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headroom route set firefox processed
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headroom set compressor.threshold_db -28
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headroom bypass on # kill switch — straight to the real sink
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```
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See `headroom --help` for the full surface.
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## Building
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```sh
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nix develop # toolchain + pipewire dev libs + helpers
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cargo build # iterate
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cargo test --workspace
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nix build # final packaged headroom binary
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```
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## License
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GPL-3.0-or-later for the daemon and CLI. `headroom-dsp` and `headroom-ipc`
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are MPL-2.0 so they can be reused by non-GPL plugin hosts and clients.
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