# Persistent memory — eshpfi-management

_Last updated: 2026-06-03_

## Repo purpose

Reference workspace for PFI infrastructure: server inventory, canonical
Docker Compose stacks, ops playbooks, and conventions. Authoritative
copies of compose files live on the servers under
`/opt/docker/compose/<stack>/`; this repo mirrors them for version
control, editing, planning, and CI-driven deploys.

## Tools and conventions

Sister repos (separate gitea repos, deployed by playbooks here):

| Repo | Role | CI status |
|---|---|---|
| `vh/task-board` | MCP + web dashboard for assistant task state (port 7878) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-04-29) |
| `vh/vor` | Inquisitor UI sidecar (port 7879) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-04-29) |
| `vh/nevermore` | Twice-daily LLM-curated briefing (port 8181, replaces news-digest) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-04-30) |
| `vh/asset-engine` | Internal control plane over inference services (port 8200, LAN-direct) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-05-12) |
| `vh/althing` | Inter-agent message bus (chamber UI port 7881, forseti + agent-runner daemons, valkey IPC) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-05-14) |
| `vh/mead-hall` | Bifrost tool-provider sidecar (port 5173 on dev VM 10.100.10.50) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-05-16) |
| `vh/skaldsong` | Wizard + reader surface (port 8300, ana-docker, registry-pull pattern) | push-to-main → CI deploys (2026-05-19) |
| `vh/worldtree` | Conversation API (corviduo-dev demo :8080 / personal :8081 / pinned :8082) — Heimdall auth, Bifrost integration | push-to-main → CI deploys |
| `vh/volva` | Codex peer agent on althing bus (single-turn oracle, systemd daemon on nh3-dev) | manual install via `deploy/volva.service` (2026-05-18) |
| `vh/yt-voice-clipper` | YouTube → diarized voice-clip dataset builder + audition console (irv-ml1 :8000) | push-to-main → **gitea-webhook auto-deploy** to irv-ml1 (2026-06-03) — see `docs/runbooks/ytvc-autodeploy.md` |

- **Two-layer backups** — Backrest orchestrates restic for file+DB (5
  fleet repos, daily 01:00 PDT); PBS-ANA primary + PBS-NH3 DR mirror for
  VM images. ana-nas is the SPOF for postgres + PBS-ANA datastore +
  cross-site restic targets — see `docs/runbooks/disaster-recovery.md`
  for the blast-radius matrix.

- **`pull-hf-repo.yaml`** is the canonical "get a HuggingFace
  model/dataset onto ana-ml2's shared cache at
  `/tank/aimodels/huggingface/`" playbook. Supports `--var repo_type=model|dataset|space`. Replaces ad-hoc `huggingface_hub.snapshot_download` patterns.

- **Worldtree admin auth — per-instance.** Each Worldtree deployment
  (demo :8080, personal :8081, pinned :8082) has its own Heimdall
  registry and its own bootstrap admin key. Infra-ops's stored
  long-lived admin key (`key_id 61419c92`) at
  `ana-docker:/opt/docker/conf/.secrets/worldtree-infra-ops-admin`
  auths against **demo only**. For personal-instance admin ops, fetch
  the bootstrap admin per-op via
  `docker exec worldtree-personal-worldtree-api-1 printenv WORLDTREE_BOOTSTRAP_ADMIN_KEY`
  on corviduo-dev. Used for `POST /admin/keys`, admin diagnostics
  (`/admin/sessions/<id>/{bifrost,tools}`, etc.).

- **Per-project user keys against personal Worldtree** (issued
  2026-05-19): `skaldsong:79744637` (nh3-dev iteration),
  `skaldsong:7c1dbbbe` (ana-docker prod), `althing:50d85460`,
  `mead-hall:a360822d`. Same `user_id=skaldsong` across both
  skaldsong keys → shared Heimdall agent slot; different `key_id`
  → independently rotatable. Pattern: mint via `/admin/keys`, drop
  value to `/tmp/wt-personal-<name>.key` mode 600, dev collects +
  shreds (DO NOT cat to chat transcript).

- **Skaldsong CD pattern (registry-pull).** Differs from althing /
  asset-engine which build-on-host. vh/skaldsong's CI builds and
  pushes `gitea.phasefinal.com/vh/skaldsong:<sha>` + `:latest`;
  `playbooks/deploy-skaldsong.yaml` on ana-docker pulls + recreates.
  SHA-pin only (no `:latest` health-gated advance yet). Prereq: host
  needs `docker login gitea.phasefinal.com` once (read:package PAT) —
  not currently in the workflow.

- **docker-as-root pattern** (for ops that have no admin API, e.g.
  `SqliteUserStore.set_bifrost_credentials`): on hosts where the SSH
  user is in the `docker` group but lacks passwordless sudo, run
  `docker run --rm -v <target-dir>:/wt -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock docker:cli sh -c "..."` to edit deploy-owned files
  without sudo. Documented with security warning in
  `servers/corviduo-dev/README.md`. docker-group membership is
  effectively root via bind-mount; treat as a sudo-equivalent grant.
  **Foot-gun: when running `docker compose` inside this sandbox,
  any relative path in compose.yaml (e.g. `${WORLDTREE_CONFIG_DIR:-./config}`)
  resolves against the sandbox CWD, but Docker daemon interprets the
  resulting path against the HOST filesystem. Always pass `-e VAR=/abs/path`
  to the docker run invocation for any relative-default config dir.**

- **`scripts/elway` sudo handling** — elway prompts for the sudo password
  ONCE via `getpass` before the first `sudo: true` step. That prompt is
  interactive → elway can't run unattended from a non-TTY tool if any step
  needs sudo. For sudo-free playbooks (no `sudo: true` steps) it runs fully
  non-interactive over key SSH. To create root-owned dirs WITHOUT host sudo,
  use the docker-daemon-root trick: `docker run --rm -v /worktank:/mnt alpine
  sh -c 'mkdir -p /mnt/<x> && chown -R 1000:1000 /mnt/<x>'`.

## Current state / in-flight

_As of 2026-06-03:_

- **INFRA SESSION 2026-06-03 — NH3 egress proxy, R14 provisioning, yt-voice-clipper CD.**
  Five threads landed (detail in the cited auto-memories + runbooks + commits):
  - **NH3 egress proxy (DURABLE).** dante SOCKS5 on nh3-dev `socks5h://10.100.10.50:1080`,
    internal-only (client ACL `10.100.0.0/16`), systemd. NH3 **residential** egress
    (~70.230.226.88) for colo services gated on their **datacenter IP**.
    `scripts/setup-nh3-egress-proxy.sh` + `docs/runbooks/nh3-egress-proxy.md` (`f27ee47`);
    auto-memory `reference_nh3_egress_proxy`.
  - **yt-voice-clipper on irv-ml1** (`/opt/docker/compose/yt-voice-clipper`, :8000
    console+API + bgutil `pot-provider` sidecar). yt-dlp via `YTVC_PROXY` egress beats
    YouTube's datacenter bot-gate (proven end-to-end). Console + audition + trim-by-playhead
    deployed; Homepage label (AI Systems) in the override. **Push-to-deploy LIVE**: gitea
    webhook → HMAC listener irv-ml1:9008 → git-clone deploy dir rebuilds on push to main.
    `docs/runbooks/ytvc-autodeploy.md` (`d4f180d`); auto-memory `reference_ytvc_autodeploy`.
  - **R14 VC-NVV tracer (brokkr-smithy)** provisioned scope-(a) on irv-ml1: box + CUDA env +
    4 engine run-envs (knn-vc/seed-vc/knn-svc/RVC, A6000-validated; one proven on a real
    VIVAE conversion) + `/mnt/smithy` nfs4 mount + VIVAE-reachability. brokkr wires arms.py +
    runs. Env at `~/r14`; auto-memory `reference_irv_ml1_gpu_r14`. OPEN: irv-ml1 git-pull
    deploy key for `vh/brokkr-smithy` pending brokkr authorizing the pubkey (tracked in the
    R14 althing thread).
  - **gitea `[webhook] ALLOWED_HOST_LIST = external, 10.100.0.0/16`** on the gitea container
    (ana-docker) — the anti-SSRF default `external` was denying webhooks to the private WG net,
    blocking the ytvc auto-deploy. Backup `app.ini.bak-pre-webhook`.
  - **irv-ml1 disk 97%→49%** — cleared all ollama models (~194 GB) + 2023-era
    `/bootstore/llm-models/Storage/` LLMs (~472 GB; 2 llmuser-owned dirs needed operator sudo).

- **chatterbox-fast — DONE** (was the primary focus). Deployed irv-ml1 :8197, cataloged
  `ready`, EXTRACTED to its own MIT repo `vh/chatterbox-fast` (`547a557`) — the eshpfi stack
  is now a pointer; auto-memory `reference_chatterbox_fast_repo`. Adaptive buffer-ratchet
  chunking, TTFB ~0.5s, A6000 fp32 5.34 GB. _(Historical build detail follows.)_ Operator-authorized
  high-effort build (incl. custom container from source). **Plan-of-attack:
  `docs/design/chatterbox-fast-plan.md`** (durable; carries the full executable
  detail). The old `docs/design/chatterbox-fast.md` was KILLED 2026-06-01 — its
  §5 windowed-token-streaming was the abandoned native arc; superseded by the
  adaptive-chunk plan. **DEPLOYED 2026-06-02** — Phases 1-3 done:
  `stacks/chatterbox-fast/` (scheduler + app + sim tests + Dockerfile/compose),
  live on **irv-ml1 :8197** (container `chatterbox-fast`, healthy) BESIDE the live
  `chatterbox` :8196. Measured: **TTFB ~0.5s** (vs ~5.2s one-shot), no starvation,
  RTF ~3.9-4.0× on A6000. **GPU = A6000 (device 1) ONLY** — turbo loads **fp32**
  (NOT the ~2.5GB fp16 old notes claimed), measured **5.34 GB**, so the 3090's
  ~3.8GB free does NOT fit. Perf: TF32/SDPA on (don't move TTFA — AR-decode-bound;
  bf16 deferred, no clean fp32→bf16 cast path). Context-priming for join coherence
  TRIED + REVERTED (discard-cut leaks prefix — see Tried/abandoned); coherence loss
  at joins is an ACCEPTED limitation (operator: cold streaming "really good").
  Remaining: Phase 4 catalog entry + cutover; optional deploy-playbook smoke gate;
  optional §5 base-fork 3-way A/B.
  - **Goal:** cut time-to-first-audio from ~2.5s → sub-second via streaming,
    keep turbo quality. Workload = single-stream interactive.
  - **Chosen approach = adaptive buffer-ratchet chunking** (operator's idea):
    generate the FIRST sentence alone for instant response (~0.66s first-audio
    measured), then while it plays, generate the largest sentence-aligned chunk
    that fits in ~80% of the bought playback time; chunks grow ~3× each (driven
    by Chatterbox's ~3.8× realtime headroom), so after 2-3 chunks the rest of
    the paragraph is one big chunk with near-full context. Context loss confined
    to 2-3 joins at natural sentence-pause boundaries. THIS is "sentence-level
    done right" and supersedes naive per-sentence splitting (which loses
    cross-sentence prosodic context = real quality loss, operator-corrected).
    Only works because RTF>1 (Fish at <1× realtime starves — can't use this).
  - **Native frame-level streaming on turbo = ABANDONED** (see Tried/abandoned).
  - **Also to build for A/B:** base-chatterbox + davidbrowne17 streaming fork
    (true frame-stream but base-model quality) — not yet installed.
  - **A/B samples** (GLaDOS voice) on nh3-dev `~/chatterbox-ab/`: sentence-level
    turbo, chunked-native (artifacty), chunked-oneshot.
  - **Dev/test pattern:** one-off GPU-1 container from `local/chatterbox:v1`,
    mount `/worktank/chatterbox/{cache,reference_audio}` + the test script;
    `docker exec -i chatterbox python -` for lib introspection. lkraven is in
    the `docker` group on irv-ml1 — NO sudo needed for docker.
- **TTS fleet on irv-ml1 reworked this session; asset-engine catalog now
  17 services** (CSM removed). Canonical `docs/asset-engine/services.yaml`
  + vendored `vh/asset-engine` both pushed (eshpfi `38d9e3b`; asset-engine
  `0b552bd`). Per-engine live state:
  - **dia2-2b (:8200) + dia2-1b (:8202)** — LIVE + healthy (restarted this
    session; `local/dia:v2`, voices + cache intact). `status: ready`.
  - **Chatterbox (:8196)** — LIVE. Catalog **v2**: routes to `/tts`, exposes
    emotion levers (exaggeration 0.5, cfg_weight 0.5, temperature 0.8), 28
    built-in predefined voices (default `Emily.wav`) + clone. Fast + competent
    cloner (it audibly cloned Imogen). Plain `Imogen.wav` uploaded to its clone
    dropdown (`/get_reference_files` now: Imogen.wav + glados_25s.wav).
  - **Fish-S2 (:8195)** — LIVE but **HEAVY**: ~240s torch.compile warmup on
    cold start, ~24 GB on the A6000; first call after any restart eats the
    warmup. Catalog **v6**: full `/tts` ServeTTSRequest surface
    (temperature/top_p/repetition_penalty/latency/seed/format) + `reference_id`
    is a 32-voice static "Voice" dropdown (default Emily) + advanced base64
    clone. NOT OpenAI-compat (only `/v1/tts`, no `/openapi.json`, no `/voices`
    API). Research/non-commercial license.
  - **zonos (:8203)** down (adapter built, not deployed). **ComfyUI :8188**
    catalog-deferred link.
- **"undefined" select bug — RESOLVED.** asset-engine-dev shipped form-select
  hardening (v0.1.9/.10) + a durable **per-field enable-toggle** (`togglable`,
  v0.1.14/.16) — the real fix for the "form submits untouched fields" family.
  My catalog half: opted fish-s2 `references` into `togglable: true`
  (`catalog_version 1→2`, schema gained the `togglable` boolean; `c98a12b`,
  pushed to origin). The earlier `blendable` idea was superseded by `togglable`.
  dia2/chatterbox clone fields deliberately NOT toggled (dia2 defaults clone-on
  as its stable voice). asset-engine CI was briefly red because the commit was
  local-only until pushed — lesson: push catalog commits promptly (their CI
  drift-checks against the remote).
- **Fish "not British" had TWO independent root causes — BOTH now fixed.**
  The ECAPA-TDNN re-test (2026-06-01) showed Fish's cloning *engine* works: an
  Imogen reference scores **~0.79 cosine vs real `Imogen.wav`** vs **~0.10 vs
  the no-reference default** — but that test fed the reference via the inline
  base64 `references` path, which masked the real defect. **`reference_id`-by-
  name (the path the catalog + form actually use) was silently a NO-OP.** Proof
  (2026-06-01): `reference_id=Abigail`, `=Imogen`, and no-reference all returned
  **byte-identical** audio (md5 `40b6ac73…`, same text+seed) → reference_id was
  being ignored entirely, so every dropdown voice collapsed to Fish's default
  speaker. Cause: fish-speech resolves `reference_id=<name>` against the
  **directory** `references/<name>/` (audio + same-basename `.lab`), but the
  voices were staged as **flat** `references/<name>.wav` + `.txt` with the
  per-name dirs left **empty** → nothing resolved. **FIX (2026-06-01):**
  populated `references/<name>/<name>.wav` + `<name>.lab` for all 32 voices;
  re-test → Imogen/Eleanor/Beatrice/Abigail/no-ref all 5 **distinct**.
  reference_id now works; British accents come through. Hardened: the
  deploy playbook gained a normalize-layout step + an A/B smoke gate
  (`reference_id` MUST change output) so the empty-dir regression can't ship
  silently. So the "not British" saga was (A) the `"undefined"` select bug
  (asset-engine, still belt-and-suspenders) AND (B) this reference_id no-op
  (server-side, FIXED) — B alone would have kept every voice identical even
  with A fixed. Earlier "reference_id-by-name is THE working path, verified"
  claim RETRACTED. Pitch-shift deepening abandoned; future clones operator-
  handled.
- **On-host consented voice library** — ~992 real-person clips cached in the
  kyutai tts-voices repo (`/worktank/kyutai-tts/.../snapshots/.../`): VCTK
  (CC BY 4.0, accent-tagged speaker IDs), Unmute voice-donations (CC0), EARS +
  expresso (CC BY-NC). Source for future clone voices. British-female Southern
  England speakers p225/p228/p229 staged into Fish as Imogen/Eleanor/Beatrice.
- **Parakeet ASR (:8765) is now UP** (brought online 2026-06-02 to transcribe
  the glados clip; operator wants it kept online). CPU-only (`gpu_device_id:
  null`), `restart=unless-stopped`, healthy. API: POST multipart `file` to
  `/transcribe` → `{"text":...}`. Image `local/parakeet:sherpa-onnx-v2`
  pre-built; `docker compose up -d` in `/opt/docker/compose/parakeet`.
- **NFS share for Smithy — DONE.** `/volume1/smithy` on nh3-nas → `/mnt/smithy`
  on nh3-dev (single export, RW, map-to-admin, scoped to nh3-dev only, fstab
  `_netdev,nofail,x-systemd.automount`). Subdirs `datasets/{raw,manifest-store,
  derived,holdout,quarantine}`; rename-atomicity verified. Smithy wired
  storage-roots.yaml + E2E-verified. **Backup DEFERRED** per operator (datasets
  regenerable; raw + manifest-store are the irreplaceable surface for when it's
  wired — durable tier should land OFF nh3-nas/cross-site, since the NH3 restic
  repo lives on the same NAS as the source).
- **Worldtree healthy v0.29.13** (last-known); **Skaldsong v0.32.2**
  (ana-docker:8300, Kokoro SSE streaming); **artemis-31b-v1i** live on
  llama-swap + worldtree personal; **ttyd fleet driver seat** on nh3-dev
  (RO :7681 / drive :7682 via Caddy) — all out of this repo, last-known.
- **Disclosed-keys hygiene queue** — rotate at convenience: HF token `hf_HBl…`
  (lkraven's HF account) leaked into BuildKit logs during the CSM build attempt
  (logs shredded, never committed — low urgency);
  `/tmp/wt-personal-skaldsong-prod.key` on nh3-dev; mead-hall's prior Worldtree
  bearer (superseded by `a360822d`); Worldtree `Z_AI_API_KEY`/`ZAI_API_KEY`;
  chamber `forseti`/`agent_runner` api_keys (superseded by `50d85460`); Gitea
  runner registration token (`a1135753…`).
- **Still open from prior sessions:** rotate `MINIFLUX_PASSWORD` (leaked
  twice); clean up legacy `news-digest` detritus on ana-docker; watch nh3-nas
  `/volume1` (was 65%; recheck before ~80%); the `docker push 60s client-side
  ceiling` mystery remains uninstrumented.

## Recent decisions

- `[2026-06-03]` **yt-voice-clipper bot-gate fix = route yt-dlp through NH3 residential
  egress, NOT cookies/PO-token.** YouTube hard-flags the Irvine colo IP (LOGIN_REQUIRED on a
  public video even with no cookies). Cookies + the bgutil PO-token + deno JS-runtime all
  loaded fine — the gate is pure IP reputation. Operator chose proxy-via-nh3-dev → durable
  dante proxy → proven. The egress proxy is a reusable fleet lever for any datacenter-IP-gated
  service.

- `[2026-06-03]` **yt-voice-clipper push-to-deploy via gitea webhook** (operator-directed,
  after 6 manual rebuilds in ~40 min). Webhook (not poll) — gitea CAN reach the WG IP per the
  operator. The proxy env + Homepage labels live in the **host-specific override** (untracked
  → survive the auto-deploy's `git reset --hard`), NOT yt-voice-clipper-dev's image. Runbook
  `d4f180d`.

- `[2026-06-03]` **R14 scope = (a) provision-only.** infra-ops provides box + CUDA env +
  engines + weights + NFS; brokkr/dev wires `arms.py` + runs — keeps infra-ops OFF the
  VIVAE-processing path (VIVAE = Variably Intense Vocalizations of Affect/Emotion, CHARTER §4
  highest-liability; operator authorized R&D-eval-only, quarantined). Box = irv-ml1 (A6000
  free; ana-ml2 GPU-saturated). Per-engine venvs (divergent torch stacks); A6000 = `cuda:0`
  NATIVE (≠ docker `=1`).

- `[2026-06-03]` **Declined worldtree v0.30.4 staging deploy** — that's worldtree-team's
  CI/CD lane (a developer `staging/vX.Y.Z` git-tag promote), not infra-ops. They self-corrected
  to the same conclusion independently.

- `[2026-06-02]` **Chatterbox → main TTS engine; build custom `chatterbox-fast`
  streaming container.** Workload = single-stream interactive. **GPU placement:
  3090 (device 0) if it fits else A6000 (device 1)** — shared dev stack, 20.5 GB
  3090-idle is expected residency, not a blocker. **Cutover: parallel catalog
  entry**, burn in beside live `chatterbox`, then flip. **Streaming approach:
  adaptive buffer-ratchet chunking** (see in-flight). Native frame-streaming
  abandoned (Tried/abandoned). Tracked: `docs/design/chatterbox-fast-plan.md`.

- `[2026-06-02]` **Sentence-splitting loses quality (operator-corrected).** I
  claimed naive sentence-level streaming has "zero quality loss" — WRONG. The
  T3 AR backbone conditions prosody on the WHOLE text; splitting loses
  cross-sentence prosodic context (contextual delivery, declination, affect
  continuity) even though voice timbre stays (reference-conditioned). No
  *artifacts* ≠ no *quality loss*. Hence the adaptive-chunk design (maximize
  context per chunk subject to latency budget), not fixed per-sentence splits.

- `[2026-06-01]` **Fish reference_id empty-dir fix shipped** (`c5bbb90`) — see
  in-flight + Tried/abandoned. Populated `references/<name>/<name>.wav`+`.lab`
  for all 32 voices; playbook gained normalize-step + A/B smoke gate. glados got
  a real transcript (ASR'd via Parakeet): the Portal "Welcome to test chamber 4"
  lines.

- `[2026-06-01]` **Fish cloning VERIFIED competent (ECAPA-TDNN)** — retracting
  the earlier "weak cloner" call. Isolated test: Imogen-referenced clone ~0.79
  cosine to the real `Imogen.wav` vs ~0.10 for the no-reference default;
  transcript condition (correct 0.787 / bogus 0.778 / empty 0.738) barely moves
  identity (affects pronunciation, not timbre). Root cause of "Imogen sounds
  nothing like British" = the `"undefined"` select bug feeding Fish its default
  voice, NOT Fish. So the entire Fish-Imogen saga was the undefined bug; no
  Fish-side fix needed. (Methodology lessons → Tried and abandoned.)

- `[2026-06-01]` **CSM (Sesame csm-1b) torn down entirely** — removed from
  catalog, `stacks/csm/`, `playbooks/deploy-csm.yaml`, and host
  (`c54ab13`). Two reasons: (1) deep-research verdict — the acclaimed
  Maya/Miles demo is a fine-tuned, larger variant Sesame never open-sourced;
  the open 1B base ships no usable voices, can't generate text, English-only,
  no real-time streaming, absent from leaderboards, dominated by
  Kokoro/Dia2/Fish/IndexTTS. (2) The upstream image is rotted (see Tried and
  abandoned). asset-engine re-synced (`306aae9`).

- `[2026-06-01]` **Chatterbox catalog v1→v2** (`93cedd6`) — re-point to the
  devnen wrapper's `/tts` (was the thin OpenAI `/v1/audio/speech` exposing
  none of the emotion knobs → poor output). Default `exaggeration: 0.5` per
  Resemble's README ("works well for most"); the server SHIPS demo-tuned 1.3
  which over-acts — deliberately NOT adopted. 28 predefined voices via
  `/get_predefined_voices` (default Emily.wav). Corrected seedable false→true.

- `[2026-06-01]` **Fish-S2 catalog v1→v6** (`f3c260e`..`38d9e3b`) — was a
  blank 2-field form; now exposes the full fish-speech ServeTTSRequest surface
  + a 32-voice `reference_id` "Voice" dropdown (STATIC list — Fish has no
  /voices API). `reference_id`-by-name works ONLY when each voice is staged as
  a `references/<name>/` dir with `<name>.wav` + `<name>.lab` — was silently a
  no-op until that layout fix on 2026-06-01 (see the two-root-causes entry
  above); the inline-path-as-filesystem-path `references` shape 500s (see Tried
  and abandoned). Corrected vram
  4→24 GB, cold_start 8→240s, seedable false→true. Added 3 consenting
  British-female VCTK voices (Imogen=p225/Eleanor=p228/Beatrice=p229).

- `[2026-06-01]` **`blendable: false` catalog flag — DEFERRED**, pending
  asset-engine-dev honoring it in the form template. Clone-voice selects
  (chatterbox/fish/dia2) must render as plain dropdowns, not the Kokoro blend
  widget (blending reference clones is nonsensical). I ship the catalog flag +
  schema field once they read it. Tracked: althing msg
  `01KT2K2SY9N7AY69R9V0B4RXSW` to asset-engine-dev.

_32 older entries archived to archival-memory.md._

## Tried and abandoned

- `[2026-06-03]` **gitea webhook to a private IP is denied by `webhook.ALLOWED_HOST_LIST`**
  (anti-SSRF; default `external` blocks private/loopback). Symptom: delivery shows
  `dial tcp ...: webhook can only call allowed HTTP servers`. Fix = APPEND the target net to
  ALLOWED_HOST_LIST in gitea's app.ini (keep `external`; scope tight, never `*`/`private`) +
  restart gitea (act_runner job containers survive a restart). gitea runs as a container on
  ana-docker (`gitea_gitea_data` volume, `/data/gitea/conf/app.ini`).

- `[2026-06-03]` **torch-2.12 venvs need `uv pip install torchcodec`** — torchaudio 2.12
  defaults to the TorchCodec backend for `.load`; without it, real audio I/O throws "TorchCodec
  is required" — and it ONLY surfaces at actual conversion, NOT at import/model-load. Lesson:
  validate real I/O, not just import, when provisioning ML engine envs. (seed-vc on torch 2.4
  uses the legacy backend, exempt.)

- `[2026-06-03]` **Backgrounding `althing-cli monitor` with an inline shell `&` (instead of
  the Bash-tool `run_in_background`) orphans it** — it survives the shell exit, holds the
  per-handle flock UNTRACKED (won't notify the session), and `stop-monitor` doesn't detect it.
  Fix: find + kill the orphan PID (verify cwd=this repo / handle first — nh3-dev is shared, other
  agents' monitors run there too), then re-arm via run_in_background. Always re-arm tracked.

- `[2026-06-03]` **`uv pip install .` fails on SmoothKen/knn-svc** (and similar script-repos)
  — it's analysis scripts + a poetry pyproject, no buildable package (setuptools
  package-discovery error). Install the pyproject deps directly, don't build the "package".

- `[2026-06-02]` **Fish (fish-s2 / OpenAudio S1-mini) progressive streaming — SHELVED (sub-realtime).** Benched RTF on A6000: 0.72x (12w) / 0.82x (30w) / 0.86x (60w), **mean 0.80x = sub-realtime**, so client-side chunking would starve (same reason chatterbox-fast needs turbo's RTF>1). Root cause of the buffering (dvalin-smithy-dev deep research, verified in our code text2semantic/inference.py L600-607): Fish only chunks on `<|speaker:X|>` tags; **plain text -> batches=[whole text]** -> all semantic tokens generate before any audio (chunk_length inert). Plus a 2nd layer: kui/ASGI StreamResponse doesn't flush (header produced t=1s, delivered t=23s) -> fix = anti-buffering headers (X-Accel-Buffering:no / Transfer-Encoding:chunked) in tools/server/views.py (kept on file, not applied). A rebuild does NOT fix this (current main same logic). **STANDING REVISIT TRIGGER: when an RTX Blackwell Pro lands in the fleet -> bench fp4-quantized Fish; if RTF > ~1.5x, give it the chatterbox-fast treatment** (client-side adaptive buffer-ratchet chunker driving /v1/tts with small text pieces). Projection: fp4 (~1/4 weight bytes, memory-bound AR decode) + Blackwell (GDDR7 ~1.8TB/s vs A6000 0.77TB/s, native FP4 cores) ~ 2-3x RTF; validate fp4 voice quality (ear/ECAPA) before committing. For now Fish stays a buffered catalog entry (great for SAVED gens, not the live-audition lane).


- `[2026-06-02]` **Context-priming at chunk joins (chatterbox-fast §1.6) —
  ABANDONED (discard-cut leaks the prefix).** To give a chunk backward prosodic
  context, prepend the prior sentence, generate `prefix+content` together, then
  discard the prefix audio. Built + opt-in shipped (commit d707439), live-A/B'd,
  reverted (090e70a). The kill: `generate()` returns one finished waveform with
  NO marker for where the prefix ends, and the model renders the same prefix with
  different timing solo vs followed-by-content — so locating the cut (generate
  prefix solo → measure duration → snap to nearest energy-min pause within ±0.4s)
  is a guess that left a whole clause of prefix in the output ("...without a trace
  of sarcasm," spoken twice; operator caught it). A reliable cut needs token-level
  boundaries (= the abandoned native-streaming arc) or per-chunk ASR/forced-
  alignment (heavy, imperfect, eats the latency budget). → Coherence loss at joins
  stays an ACCEPTED limitation; cold adaptive-chunk streaming judged "really good".
  Scheduler-side work that DID land + survive: affordability-gated priming math
  (a 2nd pass can't starve the buffer) — sound, but moot without a working cut.

- `[2026-06-02]` **Native frame-level streaming on Chatterbox-TURBO — ABANDONED
  (turbo isn't built for streaming).** Long R&D arc; record so it's not
  re-derived. (1) The model's flow is CosyVoice2-derived but `S3GenStreamer` is
  referenced-in-docstring-only (not implemented). (2) The lib's
  `flow_inference(finalize=False)` is BUGGY: the lookahead trim removes
  `pre_lookahead_len(3)*token_mel_ratio(2)=6` frames from `h` but NOT from
  `h_masks`/conds → decoder shape mismatch (e.g. 656 vs 662). A 1-line patch
  (`h_masks = h_masks[:, :, :-pre*ratio]` after the `h` trim) + sizing the
  meanflow noise to the trimmed length makes finalize=False RUN. (3) BUT the
  flow encoder uses FULL-context attention (`static_chunk_size=0`), so
  incremental/cumulative decode is **prefix-unstable** — adding tokens
  re-attends and shifts earlier mel (maxdiff ~0.30-0.39 vs one-shot,
  irrespective of fixed-noise slicing or emit-margin). (4) Forcing
  `static_chunk_size>0` on the 2 modules that carry the attr did NOT stabilize
  it (decoding_chunk_size is a forward-arg, not settable via attribute). Verdict:
  true sub-second frame-streaming on turbo needs deep model-attention surgery
  with quality risk — not worth it. Matches research ("turbo+streaming
  unsolved"; vLLM-turbo outputs noise; davidbrowne17 streaming fork is
  BASE-only). → Use adaptive-chunking instead.

- `[2026-06-02]` **Naive cumulative re-decode for streaming** — decode the
  growing token prefix each chunk + emit the delta, assuming the causal flow
  gives a stable prefix. It does NOT (full-context attention, see above);
  maxdiff 0.30. Also the high-level `s3gen.inference` re-applies `trim_fade` at
  the start every call. Don't go this way.

- `[2026-06-01]` **CSM bring-up** — upstream `phildougherty/sesame_csm_openai`
  Dockerfile pins NO `huggingface_hub` version, so it now resolves to 1.17.0
  where `huggingface-cli` is fully removed (replaced by `hf`) → the build dies
  at `huggingface-cli login`/`download`. Passing the HF token as a build-arg
  got the token in (the model downloads at BUILD time, not runtime — our
  compose only wired it as runtime env, the original failure) but then hit the
  rotted CLI. Fixing would need vendoring + patching the Dockerfile; not worth
  it for a weak model → CSM removed.

- `[2026-06-01]` **Fish path-form references** (`{audio:"/app/references/x.wav"}`)
  → HTTP 500 on this build, despite the stack README showing that shape. The
  working clone paths are `reference_id` (by name → resolves the DIRECTORY
  `references/<name>/` containing `<name>.wav` + `<name>.lab`; the flat
  `references/<name>.wav` is ignored — see the two-root-causes entry above) or
  inline base64 `references`. The catalog uses `reference_id`.

- `[2026-06-01]` **Reference transcript barely affects Fish clone IDENTITY**
  (disproving my mid-session theory). I'd blamed a bogus provenance-note `.txt`
  for poor cloning, but the ECAPA re-test showed correct (0.787) / bogus (0.778)
  / empty (0.738) transcripts all clone Imogen about equally — the transcript
  affects PRONUNCIATION (phoneme disambiguation per the docs), not who it sounds
  like. The real culprit for "not British" was the `"undefined"` select bug, not
  the transcript. (A correct transcript still marginally helps pronunciation —
  cheap to stage, not load-bearing.)

- `[2026-06-01]` **Pitch-shift register control** (rubberband, to deepen Imogen
  to contralto/mezzo) — Fish ignores small reference shifts and overshoots
  large ones; `-3st` WITHOUT formant preservation → "baritone through a tuba"
  (formants collapsed); `-2/-3st` WITH `--formant` → too subtle / still bad.
  Abandoned at every depth; all variants deleted. Finer independent
  pitch/formant control needs praat (not installed). Future clones = operator's.

- `[2026-06-01]` **resemblyzer is too weak for cloning-fidelity scoring** — its
  dated 2019 LSTM encoder + a synthetic-vs-natural domain gap scored the Imogen
  clone CLOSER to the default than to real-Imogen, which led me to a WRONG "Fish
  is a weak cloner" call. ECAPA-TDNN (speechbrain `spkrec-ecapa-voxceleb`) on the
  same clips gave the correct answer (clone 0.79 to real Imogen, 0.10 to
  default). Use ECAPA, not resemblyzer, for speaker-verification.

_35 older entries archived to archival-memory.md._