# L'Armada — completed-task archive (structured)

Long-term learning + blog/video source material. Each entry = a finished board task
captured in full (description · done · learnings · deps), appended by the `/pre-compact`
ritual before the task is cleared off the active board. Richer than the terse tracker
snapshot in `board-archive.md`. Newest first.

---

## #85 — Pack-level sample grouping (the grouping above the folder)
- **Description:** The Dirt-Samples FOLDER is a loose convention, not the true grouping —
  `rample*` is one bank sliced A0..S57, `808bd/cy/hc/mc` is one drum machine per voice,
  `*_commodore` is one chip sliced by role. PLN wanted the PACK granularity above the
  folder, so we can browse/aggregate at three grains (pack / folder / sample).
- **Done:** `sample_packs.py` + `sample_packs.json` (commit 96bc7bc), captain's log 016.
  A curated REGISTRY (types: drum_machine / bank / chip / source / genre) + an auto-grouper
  (alpha-prefix-before-digit + underscore head/tail tokens, ≥2 folders) that PROPOSES
  packs the registry missed — it caught `trance_*` and `voices_*`, folded in. Reads the
  already-grounded `sample_families.json` (no audio → fast, CPU-light). 22 packs over
  83/150 grounded folders; rolls per-sample family counts up to each pack.
- **Learnings:** Each grain answers a different question — folder = "what did the pack
  author call this slice?", pack = "where did it come from?", sample = "what does it
  actually sound like?". The signal isn't agreement, it's the MISMATCH: 15 of 22 packs
  span multiple audio families BY DESIGN (rample → 8 families, jungle → 11, one Commodore
  chip → bass/lead/pad/fx/synth). A pack defined by ORIGIN is *expected* to scatter across
  the timbre wheel; that scatter is a story (for Unwrapped viz / vibe-search scoping), not
  an error. A 1-folder "pack" is just a folder within the grounded subset — require ≥2
  (may gain siblings when #84 grounds all 718). Same discipline as the folder: a hint to
  compare against, never a law.
- **Deps:** Builds on the grounded `sample_families.json` (#69 resolver); feeds the
  Unwrapped viz (#64 lineage) and vibe-search. Re-run after #84.

## #65 — Fix serve.py Range broken-pipe crash on audio seek
- **Description:** `armada/serve.py copyfile()` threw `ConnectionResetError`/`BrokenPipeError`
  (Errno 104) when a browser aborts/seeks a Range request mid-stream (e.g. `proxy_take89.mp3`
  in the triangle drawer) — the 206 responses worked but the unhandled exception spammed the
  console.
- **Done:** Wrapped both copy branches of `copyfile()` and guaranteed the file handle closes
  in a `finally`; swallow `BrokenPipeError`/`ConnectionResetError`. Verified: a mid-stream
  abort (`curl --max-time` cut) leaves NO traceback and the server keeps serving (206
  follow-up OK). Commit **d70c3ee**.
- **Learnings:** A client disconnect on `<audio>` scrubbing is *normal*, not a failure —
  swallow it, don't log it. This was the keystone QOL fix: it de-frictions every audition
  task (#35 ear-verify, #43/#44 frag-audition, #20 best-take), so cheap-but-high-leverage.
- **Deps:** Blocked nothing formally; unblocks the ear-gating workflow ergonomically.

## #64 — "Information is Beautiful" dataviz of the generated corpus (EPIC)
- **Description:** Phase-2 infodesign of the tide-table corpus (after data-scientist
  exploration) — explorable insights served to a music aficionado.
- **Done:** `corpus.html` narrative + the **Unwrapped** explorable (vibe-search via CLAP,
  dominant-colour density field, zoom/pan) + landing `index.html` + honest style cloud +
  serve.py `/vibe` warm endpoint. Shipped across the prior session's commits; vibe-search,
  field-tuning, label-completion (1490/1501 samples), and zoom all landed.
- **Learnings:** Dots are the stars — the field stays subtle; **don't average hues** (→ mud),
  use the per-cell DOMINANT family colour + purity-fade + desaturate + lift. Cache the field
  offscreen, rebuild on colour/axis/filter change, never on hover. Per-one-shot CLAP
  genre/mood is unreliable (0.3s hits) but CLAP **embeddings are gold for relative
  similarity** (vibe-search / find-similar). Seed free-text search with the user's OWN words.
  DarkReader can fight a dark theme — suspect the inverter before re-tuning to a phantom.
- **Deps:** Spawned #63 (cross-app SPA landing — the tide-table index shipped; tying in the
  React surfaces remains). Set the foundation the emotion-engine work (#89–#92) built on.

---

# The Foundry — phase-2 loops chain (overnight, 2026-06-23)

One session built the entire url→stems→**loops** chain end to end: grader, tierlist,
correlation, finder, naming, GUI, plus engine2 (merge) and audio hardening. Every claim
below is measured; honest negatives kept honest.

## #8 — engine2 Roformer VRAM spike
- **Done:** `research/engine2_spike/spike.sh`; commit 1a201df.
- **Learnings:** Roformer FITS the 6GB RTX 2060 (peak 3051 MiB, ~0.55× realtime) — the
  wall was never VRAM, it was Python: py3.14 breaks (beartype rejects audio-separator's
  `Callable|None` hints); a py3.12 venv works (`~/.virtualenvs/audio-separator`).
- **Deps:** fed #9.

## #10 — Loop grader (the katana), engine/grade.py
- **Done:** pure `grade(wav)->LoopGrade` (S/A/B/C/D + per-rule subscores + flags); commit edb6225.
- **Learnings:** (1) librosa 0.11 tempo is `librosa.feature.tempo`, NOT `.rhythm.tempo` — a
  swallowed AttributeError flat-lined bar-consistency at 0.50 for every file. (2) seam =
  CONTINUITY = the 2nd difference `|x0-2x[-1]+x[-2]|` at the wrap, not the single-sample step
  (the step metric punishes a clean wrap at a zero crossing — a perfect sine scored 0.40).
- **Deps:** reused by #5, #7, #11, #18, #19.

## #11 — Hall of Fame tierlist (data + impeccable viz)
- **Done:** `build_tierlist.py` (1690 loops/97 kits) + `tierlist.html`; commits f88273b, 4c9a831.
- **Learnings:** grade↔.tidal-usage Spearman ρ=+0.34 (rubric points right). The CONFOUND is
  the insight: FX kits (risers 16×, weird_dialogs) tier LOW correctly — sweeps aren't loops,
  so the grader tells loops from transitions; custom `f*` palette validates from the other
  side (fsynth/fguitar A). Only 34/97 kits carry a usage token (folder-name vs `s`-token).
  Showed the confound in the scatter rather than hiding it (trust the instrument).

## #12 — Correlation engine (provenance recovery), engine/correlate.py
- **Done:** NCC sample↔stem matcher + `build_provenance.py`; 482/1690 matched (29%),
  cross-stem alignment 0.34; commit 7a79dc8.
- **Learnings:** a hand-cut loop is a literal slice → NCC peaks ~1.0 (foreign ~0.03). TWO
  load-bearing bugs: (a) naive all-pairs full-res took 56 MIN → fixed with coarse-to-fine
  (rank stems on a frame-RMS ENVELOPE, precise NCC on top-3, ~40× cheaper, minutes); (b)
  SILENT-WINDOW BLOWUP — catastrophic cancellation in the sliding-variance cumsum drove the
  normaliser to ~0 in quiet regions, so silence scored ∞ and faked perfect matches (a run
  reported a bogus 55%/0.69, ~440 false positives). Floor the window norm at 5% of global
  energy + clamp NCC to [-1,1]. Also: py3.14 mp defaults to FORKSERVER → COW-global trick
  fails (empty globals per worker); pin `mp.get_context("fork")`.

## #5 + #18 — Loop finder (engine/loops.py) + v2
- **Done:** §1 pipeline (PLP→beat-sync SSM→Foote→scored windows→Takes→export); grid-from-drums;
  chop mode; commits c17dd0d, de0cb11, cdf2f13, 0a2921a, 5ac5cd0.
- **Learnings:** bare PLP latches the eighth-note pulse → ~2× tempo (Loituma read 250 not 125);
  pin tempo_min/max to one octave + min peak distance. Per-stem PLP grids are WEAK on
  sparse-onset vocals → grid-from-drums (one grid from the rhythmic stem, reused for all)
  lifted recall 0.27→0.34 (vocals 0.27→0.50). Chop mode (onset sub-bar) WORKS but recall
  0.13 < loops 0.34 — PLN picks chops by TASTE from many onsets (recall is a harsh metric;
  onsets over-segment, floored chops at 0.25s). Loops=default, chops=opt-in.

## #7 — Finder recall harness, build_finder_eval.py
- **Done:** recall vs provenance GT (distinct-window, uncapped N + precision); commit 09bace6.
- **Learnings:** honest 0.27 recall / 0.24 precision on the 8 most-cut stems — BELOW the 0.70
  target, and that's diagnostic not failure: those are chop-heavy sources (14-42 sub-bar cuts
  /stem); the bar-finder can't reproduce sub-bar chops, and the finder is a SUGGESTER anyway.

## #9 — Merge-of-stems multimodel, engine/separate.py
- **Done:** MultiModelBackend cascade (Roformer vocals → demucs on the instrumental for
  drums/bass/other → merged 4-stem) + wired RoformerBackend + demucs model selector; commits
  853eeaf, 14e69fe.
- **Learnings:** there is NO 4-stem Roformer (all are 2-stem) — the win is an ENSEMBLE.
  htdemucs_ft is a free drop-in 4-stem A/B (vocals SDR 10.8 vs 9.9). Refactored backends to
  declare `produces` + `run_composite`. Verified on Loituma: 4 clean PCM_16 stems.

## #13/#16/#17 + audio fix — supporting wins
- **#13 naming** (engine/naming.py, 146070b): NN_role[_character] derived from the corpus
  (46% indexed, 74% underscore, kit-name not repeated).
- **#16 live MIDI panel** (c0fd5d4): SSE fan-out into the Bridge, colour-by-event.
- **#17 self-updating corpus essay** (24606d4): templated Story 02 from EDA + freshness badge;
  honesty fix — 4→14 gigs is "grew 3.5×", not the hand-copied "tripled".
- **AUDIO STREAMING fix** (7c3154a): stdlib http.server defaults to HTTP/1.0 → `<audio>`
  seeking (many small Range requests) is flaky in real browsers. Set
  `protocol_version="HTTP/1.1"` on the Foundry Handler AND armada RangeHandler (safe: every
  response sets Content-Length). Also preload="metadata" so durations show (0:00/0:00 read as
  "broken"), and offer the ORIGINAL alongside stems. A fleet-wide gotcha for any audio server.

- **Deps:** the chain feeds #19 (auto-tune settings against the grader) and #20 (batch-explore
  many sources). Engine registry now seeds the product/API/service direction PLN wants.
