amethyst/nestsClient/plans/2026-04-26-audio-rooms-completion.md

Audio rooms — completion plan (2026-04-26)

What's left between today's code and shippable audio rooms in Amethyst.

STATUS UPDATE (2026-04-26 PM): the interop test suite (phases 1–4 of the nostrnests work, see commits 3283d30 → 1887bd1) uncovered that nostrnests's stack runs on moq-lite (kixelated's variant), NOT IETF draft-ietf-moq-transport-17 — which is what :nestsClient's MoQ layer currently implements. The two are wire-incompatible. Concrete impact: the listener path described under "Where we are" below works against any IETF MoQ-transport server but cannot exchange a single MoQ message with the real nostrnests relay until a moq-lite codec lands. Tracking doc: 2026-04-26-moq-lite-gap.md. Phase M1 below should be re-read with that gap in mind — manual validation against nostrnests.com is on hold until the moq-lite phase ships.

Where we are

The transport stack is done and audited (quic/plans/2026-04-26-quic-stack-status.md). On top of it, :nestsClient already has:

• HTTP control plane (NestsClient.resolveRoom — NIP-98 auth → room info)
• WebTransport adapter (QuicWebTransportFactory wires :quic into the WebTransportSession interface)
• MoQ session — listener side: MoqSession.client(...) + setup() + subscribe(namespace, trackName, filter) + control + datagram pumps
• Opus decode + audio playback chain: MediaCodecOpusDecoder, AudioTrackPlayer, AudioRoomPlayer
• NestsListener API + connectNestsListener orchestration
• Audio capture primitives (AudioRecordCapture, MediaCodecOpusEncoder) exist but are not wired into a publisher path

Amethyst's audiorooms/ UI parses NIP-53 events and renders rooms + participant chips. It does NOT call NestsListener — there's no Connect button, no audio output, no mute control wired.

So the punch list is: app-side wiring → manual interop validation → speaker path → backgrounding & polish.

Phase M1 — Listener-only MVP (1 week)

Goal: open a real audio room from the Amethyst UI, hear one speaker.

• Wire connectNestsListener into a RememberRoomConnection composable in amethyst/.../audiorooms/room/. Lifecycle tied to DisposableEffect; cancels on screen exit.
• Surface NestsListenerState in the UI:
  • Idle / Connecting → show a spinner or chip "Connecting…"
  • Connected → show "Audio connected" chip + auto-subscribe to the host's speaker track (NIP-53 room's p tag with role host)
  • Failed(reason, cause) → toast / inline message
• AudioRoomPlayer per subscription. Per the audio-rooms NIP draft (docs/plans/2026-04-22-nip-audio-rooms-draft.md) one speaker = one track name = <speaker-pubkey-hex>; one AudioRoomPlayer per speaker.
• Mute toggle drives AudioPlayer.setVolume(0f / 1f) on the active player. Mute at the player keeps the network running so unmute is instant.
• Backed by an AudioRoomViewModel in commons/.../viewmodels/ so desktop can reuse the orchestration once it gets WT.

Tests:

• Manual: connect to nostrnests.com, open a known room, hear audio.
• Unit: AudioRoomViewModel state-flow transitions on NestsListenerState updates.

Phase M2 — Multi-speaker + audience UX (3 days)

• Subscribe to every host + speaker p tag, not just the first one. Mix at the audio side (Android AudioTrack accepts multiple writers if we use one shared track + downmix; cleaner: one AudioTrack per subscription and let the OS mix).
• Show per-speaker level meters (if the encoder exposes RMS) or just a speaking indicator driven by "objects received in last 200 ms".
• React to NIP-53 room event updates: a new speaker added to p → open a subscription; a speaker removed → close one.

Phase M3 — Foreground service (2 days)

• Android MediaSessionService with a media-style notification so playback continues when the app backgrounds.
• Stop the service on:
  • screen exit AND no other audio-room-screen is alive
  • user dismisses the notification
  • underlying NestsListener enters Failed or Closed
• Permission shim: RECORD_AUDIO is NOT needed for listener-only.

Phase M4 — Manual interop pass against nostrnests.com (3 days)

This is the proof-of-life step before any speaker work.

• Build a debug build with the listener flow above.
• Open one of the long-running test rooms hosted by nests.
• Confirm: connect succeeds; SUBSCRIBE_OK arrives; OBJECT_DATAGRAMs decode through MediaCodec into audible audio.
• Anything that surfaces here goes into a follow-up audit / fix pass on :quic or :nestsClient. We expect one or two issues — protocol drafts drift, and we've only verified against aioquic, not a real MoQ relay.
• Capture a packet trace if anything fails so we can compare on-the-wire bytes against a known-working JS client.

Phase M5 — Speaker path: MoQ publisher (1 week)

The big one. MoqSession only does subscribe today; it needs ANNOUNCE + OBJECT emission.

Required MoQ messages to encode + decode:

Message	Direction	Status
ANNOUNCE	client → server	not implemented
ANNOUNCE_OK / ANNOUNCE_ERROR	server → client	decode + match-by-namespace
ANNOUNCE_CANCEL	server → client	decode + signal publisher to stop
UNANNOUNCE	client → server	encode
SUBSCRIBE	server → client (we're publisher)	accept + map to our track sink
SUBSCRIBE_OK / SUBSCRIBE_ERROR	client → server	encode
SUBSCRIBE_DONE	client → server	encode on track end
OBJECT_DATAGRAM (publish-side)	client → server	encode + emit

API we need on MoqSession:

suspend fun announce(
    namespace: TrackNamespace,
    parameters: List<TrackParameter> = emptyList(),
): AnnounceHandle

interface AnnounceHandle {
    /** New publisher per track name we serve under this namespace. */
    suspend fun openTrack(name: ByteArray): TrackPublisher
    /** Stop announcing; sends UNANNOUNCE + closes any open track publishers. */
    suspend fun unannounce()
}

interface TrackPublisher {
    /** Push one OBJECT_DATAGRAM. group/objectId are managed internally
     *  per the audio-rooms NIP. */
    suspend fun send(payload: ByteArray)
    suspend fun close()
}

Internal additions:

• pendingAnnounces keyed by namespace, like the existing pendingSubscribes
• inbound-SUBSCRIBE routing: when the server SUBSCRIBEs, we look up the publisher by namespace+name and start delivering its objects with the server-assigned subscribeId/trackAlias
• group/object id management: monotonic group per TrackPublisher, object id zero-reset per group; reflect this in the emitted OBJECT_DATAGRAM header

Tests:

• MoqSession unit tests for ANNOUNCE round-trip via FakeWebTransport
• Integration: a publisher sends 100 Opus-shaped payloads through to a matching subscriber, all received with intact group/object ids

Phase M6 — Capture → encode → publish (3 days)

The inverse of AudioRoomPlayer:

• AudioCaptureSource (commonMain interface) with platform actuals on AudioRecordCapture (Android) and a desktop one later
• AudioRoomBroadcaster orchestrates: pull PCM frames from the capture → feed MediaCodecOpusEncoder → push the resulting Opus packet into TrackPublisher.send
• RECORD_AUDIO permission gate — surface on first-tap of the talk button
• Push-to-talk vs always-on toggle: at the API level, just start() / stop() on the broadcaster; the UI decides

Phase M7 — NestsSpeaker API (2 days)

Mirror of NestsListener for hosts/speakers:

interface NestsSpeaker {
    val state: StateFlow<NestsSpeakerState>
    suspend fun startBroadcasting(): BroadcastHandle
    suspend fun close()
}

interface BroadcastHandle {
    suspend fun setMuted(muted: Boolean)
    suspend fun close()
}

Same connectNestsSpeaker orchestration as connectNestsListener but the post-setup step is announce(...) instead of subscribe(...).

UI:

• Talk button only enabled when our pubkey is in the room's p tags with role host or speaker
• "Live" indicator while broadcasting, level meter from the encoder
• Mute / unmute drives BroadcastHandle.setMuted

Phase M8 — App polish (3-5 days)

• Connection-recovery: NestsListener exposes reconnect(); the screen retries on Failed after a short backoff
• Room-leave cleanup: on screen exit, send UNSUBSCRIBE + UNANNOUNCE before closing the WT session (audit-4 / 5 already wired the WtCloseSession capsule emit on close())
• Surface server peerGoawayProtocolError and the various NestsListenerState.Failed reasons as user-readable messages
• iOS: stub everything in iosMain with expects that error cleanly until iOS audio capture/playback land

Phase M9 — Backgrounding for speakers (2 days)

Different from M3 because capture has stricter Android rules:

• Foreground service type microphone (Android 14+ requires this)
• Notification with prominent "Speaking" indicator + mute action

Out of scope for this plan

• Recording / saving room audio.
• Server-mixed audio. Each speaker is a separate track per the NIP draft; mixing is client-side.
• Video. We support audio only.
• Accessibility transcription.
• Desktop audio capture (until Compose Desktop has a stable AudioInput API; today's options are JNA-heavy).

Timeline

Phase	Days	Cumulative
M1 Listener wire-up	5	5
M2 Multi-speaker	3	8
M3 Foreground listener	2	10
M4 Real-server interop	3	13
M5 MoQ publisher	5	18
M6 Capture + encode	3	21
M7 NestsSpeaker	2	23
M8 Polish	4	27
M9 Foreground speaker	2	29

≈ 6 weeks to ship full audio rooms (listener + speaker + Android polish). ≈ 2 weeks to ship listener-only (M1+M3+M4) which is the 95% case for audience members.

Stop conditions

• M4 reveals the QUIC stack can't reach nostrnests.com — drop into a protocol-comparison pass (likely a draft-version mismatch or a small framing bug). Up to 1 wk of :quic adjustment, otherwise we ship behind a feature flag and chase interop async.
• MediaCodec Opus is missing on a target device. Android 10+ ships the decoder; for older devices we'd need a software Opus, which is out of scope.

Pointers

• QUIC stack status: quic/plans/2026-04-26-quic-stack-status.md
• Audio-rooms NIP draft: docs/plans/2026-04-22-nip-audio-rooms-draft.md
• Original (frozen) QUIC plan: docs/plans/2026-04-22-pure-kotlin-quic-webtransport-plan.md
• Existing listener entry point: nestsClient/src/commonMain/kotlin/com/vitorpamplona/nestsclient/NestsListener.kt
• App-side audio-room screen: amethyst/src/main/java/com/vitorpamplona/amethyst/ui/screen/loggedIn/audiorooms/