- `[2026-07-17]` **Zonos2 `:1920` engine → self-contained container (stays on 3090); prosody-priming is a SERVING-LAYER change (engine stays stock).**

**Context.** The production Zonos TTS engine (irv-ml1 `:1920`, feeds asset-engine + gateway-chat via `zonos-gateway` :8890) was a bare native process — its real launch config existed ONLY in the running process argv (the committed `~/tts-audition/harness/zonos_server.sh` was STALE: said A6000/:1919/no perf flags; live is 3090/:1920 with `--cuda-graph-max-bs 1 --num-pages 16384 --max-running-requests 2 --memory-ratio 0.3`). Captured to eshpfi `stacks/zonos-engine/` (README + corrected `zonos2-server.sh` + `.env.example`), commit **14a0004** (UNPUSHED as of the snapshot).

**Decision 1 — containerize as a SELF-CONTAINED image** (not systemd — operator rejected; not a thin bind-mount wrapper — I walked that back: bind-mounting the host's CUDA-compiled `.venv` couples to the host's exact CUDA/glibc and is fragile + not reproducible). Shape: `FROM` a CUDA 12.8 base → `uv sync` against the repo's committed `uv.lock` (deterministic env) → mount the ~15 GB HF weights (`~/.cache/huggingface/hub/models--Zyphra--ZONOS2`, do NOT bake) → pin the **3090** (`NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0`) → `restart: unless-stopped` → CMD = the captured invocation. **Engine stays STOCK** Zyphra/Zonos2 @ commit `194c0a3` (no fork — the `zonos2` package ships its own server). **Build risk:** heavy compiled-CUDA deps (flashinfer / sgl_kernel / cutlass-dsl / apache-tvm-ffi / pynini) on torch 2.9.1+cu128 — mostly prebuilt wheels + the `uv.lock` make it tractable, expect a couple build iterations. **Cutover (in place on the 3090):** stop the native process (frees ~17 GB) → `docker compose up -d` (re-allocates ~17 GB, same footprint) → repoint `zonos-gateway`'s `ZONOS_URL` at the container (or keep the `:1920` host-port publish). One brief prod-TTS blip.

**GPU = 3090 (operator 2026-07-17).** Keep it OFF the A6000 — the A6000 already OOMs under ComfyUI load (idle ~19 GB but spikes far higher during gen), so it can't host Zonos too. The 3090 already runs Zonos, so the containerize-in-place cutover changes nothing about placement.

**Decision 2 — the prosody-priming hypothesis (operator's test; the reason for building fresh).** PRIME the autoregressive engine with an emotional sentence, then TRUNCATE it from delivery: prepend a primer → **generate "primer + real text" as ONE continuous utterance** (the AR model carries prosody forward across the boundary) → ASR-timestamp the primer's end (**parakeet**, already up on irv-ml1 `:8765`, word timestamps) → **clip the primer in the inter-sentence silence gap** (+ ~15 ms fade-in, no click) → deliver only the real text, now wearing the primed prosody. Examples: primer "I'm so EXCITED about this." → "This will be a lot of fun!" spoken excited; primer "I'm whispering this to you right now." → "I'm so glad to see you baby." whispered. **This is PURE serving-layer orchestration — the engine is untouched; it lives in the gateway adapter `stacks/zonos/adapter/server.py`.** Only fork the engine if the black-box approach fails.

**THE CRUX the test resolves:** does AR prosody actually **carry across the sentence boundary**, or does Zonos reset at the period? → the harness A/Bs the **JOIN punctuation**: period (operator's examples) vs comma vs ellipsis vs none ("…excited about this, this will be…"). Everything else is plumbing.

**Plan / design recs.** (a) Build the stock engine image (parallel track). (b) Stand up a priming TEST HARNESS against the NATIVE engine (fast iteration, seconds) + parakeet ASR: prime→generate→timestamp→gap-clip→out; compare primed-clipped vs plain on the two cases (subjective + a cheap objective proxy: pitch/energy variance for "excited", spectral-tilt/low-energy for "whisper"). Iterate on the join, then bake the winner into the gateway adapter. **Primer source:** caller-supplied for the harness (test arbitrary primers) → a curated emotion→primer library (`excited`/`whisper`/…) + optional caller override for production. **ASR:** parakeet primary; WhisperX forced-align fallback if parakeet word timestamps are coarse.

See eshpfi `stacks/zonos-engine/README.md` + `stacks/zonos/` (the gateway adapter).