# Changelog

Protocol, ABI, driver and embedder detail, one section per stable release, newest first.

This is the **technical** half of a release. The other half — what changed for people who *use*
Punktfunk — is `docs/releases/vX.Y.Z.md`, and it deliberately contains no internal names. The two
were one document through v0.24.0; they split at v0.25.0 because the engineering section had grown
long enough to bury the user-facing half it was appended to. See `docs/releases/README.md`.

If you embed `punktfunk-core`, package Punktfunk, or write a plugin, this file is for you. Start
with the version table of the release you are moving to, then read **Breaking changes**.

---

## v0.26.0

52 commits since v0.25.0.

### Versions

| | v0.25.0 | v0.26.0 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wire protocol | 2 | **2** | unchanged |
| C ABI | 17 | **17** | unchanged — no symbol added, removed or changed |
| Workspace crate dirs | 26 | **26** | unchanged (40 workspace members) |
| Virtual-display driver protocol | 6 | **6** | unchanged (minimum accepted still 3) |
| Windows virtual-gamepad channel | 3 | **3** | unchanged |
| Plugin index schema | 1 | **1** | unchanged |
| `api/openapi.json` | 0.24.0 | **0.25.0** | tracks API edits, lags one release by convention |
| gamescope patch level (`+pfhdrN`) | 2 | **4** | 3 patches → 6; `pkgrel` 1 → 2 |
| `@punktfunk/host` (SDK) | 0.1.2 | **0.1.4** | |
| `@punktfunk/plugin-kit` | 0.3.2 | **0.4.0** | the `plugin` launch kind |

`crates/pf-driver-proto` is byte-for-byte identical to v0.25.0 and to v0.24.0 — if you ship the
virtual-display driver or the gamepad channel, the last two releases have not touched you.

### ⚠ Breaking changes

**None.** This is a fixes release. Every embedder, packager and plugin that works against v0.25.0
works against v0.26.0 unchanged. Two behaviour changes are worth knowing about anyway, because both
make a client advertise *less* than it used to — see **Capability advertisement** below.

### Capability advertisement

- **`VIDEO_CAP_444` is now probed, not asserted.** It rode the "Full chroma" setting alone. That was
  safe while a software HEVC decoder sat underneath it; M8 removed one (there is no permissively
  licensed HEVC CPU decoder, so `software_decodable_codecs()` is `H264|AV1`). The host grants 4:4:4
  on HEVC **only** and answers the resolved chroma in the `Welcome` *before* the client builds a
  decoder — so on a device with no 4:4:4 decode the toggle did not cost crispness, it cost the whole
  codec: the Vulkan rung refuses the shape at construction, VAAPI refuses it too, there is no CPU
  rung, and the session reconnects on H.264. No AMD silicon has HEVC 4:4:4 decode, so every Steam
  Deck with that switch on lost HEVC. Per-profile and default-off, which is why it read as
  intermittent.

  Now gated on `hevc_444_hardware_decodable`, which asks the driver through the same code the rung
  uses at construction (`VkH265Decoder::probe_stream_support`). **Both depths are required**, not
  either: with HDR the host may resolve 4:4:4 10-bit, and a device offering `YUV444_8` but not
  `YUV444_10` lands in the same hole. Answering from the Vulkan rung alone is exact rather than
  approximate — it is the only rung in this build that implements 4:4:4 at all
  (`pf_vaadec::profile_for` errors on `chroma_format_idc 3`, pf-dxvadec refuses anything but 4:2:0,
  the CPU rung is 8-bit 4:2:0).

  ⚠ Deliberately **not** extended to `VIDEO_CAP_10BIT`/HDR: all three rungs implement 10-bit 4:2:0,
  so a Vulkan-only probe there would withdraw HDR from boxes whose VAAPI/DXVA rung decodes it
  perfectly — a regression against a case never observed.

  The bit arithmetic moved into `video::video_caps_for` so the part that was wrong is testable
  without a GPU, a host or a `Hello`; the test is verified non-vacuous against the planted defect.

### Host and client environment variables

Four new, one clarified. Verified new by `git grep` at the v0.25.0 tag, not assumed —
`PUNKTFUNK_JUMBO`, `PUNKTFUNK_WIRE_MTU`, `PUNKTFUNK_STREAMED_AU`, `PUNKTFUNK_LIBRARY_ART_ROOTS`,
`PUNKTFUNK_RECOVER_SESSION_CMD`, `PUNKTFUNK_GAMESCOPE_SDR_NITS`, `PUNKTFUNK_MAX_FPS` and
`PUNKTFUNK_ON_CONNECT_CMD` all already existed.

- **`PUNKTFUNK_OVERLAY_MASK`** *(new, client)* — controls the Steam-overlay input mask below.
- **`PUNKTFUNK_PYROWAVE_CHUNK_KIB`** *(new)* and **`PUNKTFUNK_PYROWAVE_STREAMED_AU`** *(new)* —
  PyroWave AU chunking and the streamed-AU path.
- **`PYROWAVE_QUEUE_PRIORITY`** *(existed, but was inert on Linux — see below)* — grammar: unset →
  realtime, ASCII-lowercased, `off` alone disables, `high` asks for HIGH only, junk falls back to
  the ladder rather than to off. ⚠ **One env var must not mean two things on two platforms**, so
  the Rust grammar is unit-tested against the C patch's, including where both are deliberately
  un-clever (neither trims).
- **`PUNKTFUNK_GAMESCOPE_REFRESH_RATES=60,90,120`** *(new)* — widens the set a gamescope session
  offers in Steam's in-session display settings. The rate the session actually runs at is always
  included, so it can only add options; junk entries are skipped rather than failing the host.
  Requires gamescope patch level 3+.
- **`PUNKTFUNK_COMPOSITOR`** *(behaviour clarified, not changed)* — documented as "which backend to
  drive", it also silently discarded `game_session=dedicated`: `resolve_compositor` gated the
  dedicated route on `!overridden` and logged nothing either way. The pin still wins — it is the
  operator's explicit knob — but it now says so and names itself. Two further holes closed with it:
  the pin put its backend into `available()` unconditionally *and* skipped `apply_session_env`'s
  `XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP` scrub, so `pick_compositor` could never return `None` — the one call site of
  `try_recover_session()`, which left `PUNKTFUNK_RECOVER_SESSION_CMD` unreachable behind that arm.
  Liveness is now read on both paths. `needs_live_session()` exempts gamescope, which stands up its
  own session, so pinning it on a headless box stays supported.

### Client settings keys

All additive; an older client ignores what it does not know, and a newer value can never trap an
older client.

- **`gamepad_ui_mode`** — `"connected"` (default, and exactly what the previous lone Bool meant) or
  `"always"`. Splits *whether* the controller UI is offered from *when* it appears.
  `GamepadUIEnvironment.isActive` takes the mode with **no default argument** on purpose: a call
  site that forgot it would silently strand everyone who chose Always. An unrecognized value waits
  for a controller.
- **`ui_palette`** gains `oled` at **index 1**, directly after the brand default — keeping
  `PALETTES[0]` the unknown-id fallback and the dark-to-pale cycling order intact. Hand-mirrored in
  three languages (`pf-console-ui`'s `library.rs`, `GamepadPalette.swift`, `GamepadPalette.kt`); each
  port carries an `oled_is_actually_black` test that measures the claim (mean cell luminance 0.019
  against Violet's 0.254) rather than restating the table.
- **`library-hidden.json`** — per-title hide list, mirroring how `library-scanners.json` holds
  disabled sources. Deliberately **not** stored on the entry: a scanner's and a plugin's titles are
  rebuilt from scratch on every scan and reconcile, so a flag written onto one would be erased
  minutes later. Applied in `all_games`, the single funnel every play surface already goes through
  (client grid, native clients, the GameStream app list, launch resolution).

### gamescope patches

Three → six, and the marker patch moves last so the banner is stamped after the capabilities it
advertises.

- **0003 — headless: advertise the virtual display's mode and refresh rates.** `CHeadlessConnector`
  returned empty spans from `GetModes()` and `GetValidDynamicRefreshRates()` and reported
  `GAMESCOPE_SCREEN_TYPE_INTERNAL`, so `update_mode_atoms` **deleted** the mode-list atom and
  wlserver fell through to a one-entry refresh list built from `g_nOutputRefresh` — which, with
  `--nested-refresh` absent, is `Init()`'s 60 Hz default. That is why a 1920x1080@120 client saw
  "gamescope only shows 60hz" and Overwatch capped itself to 60 while the stream ran at 120. Now
  populates both from the resolved mode, reports `EXTERNAL`, and adds `--custom-refresh-rates`.
  gamescope-session-plus has probed for that flag for years; upstream never had it, so the
  `CUSTOM_REFRESH_RATES` env it plumbs was a no-op everywhere.
- **0004 — pipewire: optionally composite the external overlay into the capture stream.** That layer
  is mangoapp. `paint_pipewire` has never referenced it on any version. Behind
  `--pipewire-composite-external-overlay`, off by default.
- **0006 — never destroy the Vulkan device or output.** `g_device` (`CVulkanDevice`) and `g_output`
  (`VulkanOutput_t`) were plain globals, so glibc ran their destructors from `__run_exit_handlers`
  once `main()` returned — calling back into an ICD that had already been torn down and unloaded.
  Faulting address equalling the instruction pointer is the signature. Reproducible with
  `gamescope --backend headless -W 1280 -H 720 -r 60 --xwayland-count 1 -- true` (exit 139, every
  time). Both globals get storage constructed exactly as before but never destroyed; pinning only
  the device relocated the fault into `~VulkanOutput_t`, hence a shared `CNoDestroy<T>`.

  ⚠ **`+pfhdrN` deliberately does not move for 0006.** The marker is a capability tier the host
  probes via `gamescope_patch_level()` *before* it spawns; this patch adds no capability, so bumping
  it would advertise a tier that does not exist. Ships as a `pkgrel` bump instead.

⚠ gamescope CI legs are best-effort — a broken patch is a **missing package**, not a red run.

### Virtual-display handle ownership (Windows)

The control-device sharing contract was "bare `HANDLE` copies, never closed for the process
lifetime": retired handles were kept alive because pinger/linger threads and capture closures held
raw copies whose soundness depended on no-close. An open control handle is exactly what vetoes the
PnP disable — and can wedge the `pnputil` restart — that wake-from-sleep recovery leans on, so every
post-wake adapter reload came back REFUSED. `reset-pf-vdisplay.ps1` stops the whole host service
precisely to get those handles closed; the in-process recovery could not.

Ownership is now `Arc` all the way out: `ensure_device` / `device_handle` / `control_device_handle`
hand out `Arc<OwnedHandle>` clones, every consumer holds its clone across its IOCTLs (ending the
`isize` smuggling — `Arc<OwnedHandle>` is `Send + Sync`), and retiring drops only the manager's
reference. `DeviceSlot::retired` is gone.

⚠ **Nothing may store a bare control `HANDLE` again.** The whole fix is that the handle closes when
the last in-flight user drains.

### Presenter — points are not pixels

`SDL_GetDesktopDisplayMode` reports a mode in **screen coordinates** and hands the pixels-per-point
ratio back separately as `pixel_density`; `m.w`/`m.h` were read raw. KDE advertises a 2560x1600 panel
at 150 % as 1707x1067 points with a density of ~1.4997, `render_scale::apply` even-floors both odd
axes, and 1706x1066 went on the wire. Multiplying by the density recovers 2560x1600 to the pixel.

⚠ Inert on X11 and Windows: SDL never sets a density there and `SDL_video.c` normalizes the unset
0.0 to 1.0. **This bug needed a compositor doing fractional scaling.**

Second, independent defect: the SDL window was created without `HIGH_PIXEL_DENSITY`, so the Wayland
surface stayed at buffer scale 1 and the swapchain was built at 1707x1067 for KWin to upscale. That
one also silently shrank "Match window", which asks the host for `size_in_pixels()`.

### Apple audio session

`micEnabled` and `echoCancel` both default to `true`, so the **default** iOS session is
`.playAndRecord` — and that branch set `.defaultToSpeaker`. That option is an output **override**,
not a preference, and it outranks an A2DP route. ⚠ **Wired headphones beat it, Bluetooth does not**,
so testing with a cable returns the wrong answer — which is what the comment sitting on it asserted.

Now solved against the route actually given: after activation, if the current output is
`.builtInReceiver`, override to speaker; anything external (Bluetooth, wired, CarPlay, AirPlay) is
left strictly alone. The override is a property of the current route — iOS drops it on every route
change, which is what lets a newly-connected headset win — so it is re-applied per route via an
observer, registered only for `.playAndRecord`, removed in `stop()` before deactivate, `deinit` as
backstop. Without it, dropping Bluetooth mid-stream lands on the earpiece.

⚠ Deliberately **not** adding `.allowBluetooth`: it would make a headset's mic usable but drag the
whole route onto HFP/SCO and collapse game audio to narrowband.

### Audio jitter policy

`JitterPolicy` (`punktfunk-core/src/audio.rs`, used by Linux/Windows/Android) and its mirror in
Swift `AudioRing`. The policy learned exclusively from audible failures on both sides: growth needed
**three** audible underruns; the A/V sync loop re-tested a shallower ring every five quiet seconds
and paid an audible starvation event every time it was wrong, forever; and a grown target was never
re-banked (growth raises a threshold — only a re-prime deepens the ring), so a bunching link rode
the knife edge with the "grown" target sitting inert.

Three mechanisms: **near-miss** (a read served with less than one protocol frame left over is the
same evidence as an underrun, heard by no one — grows one step per window, *before* the click);
**shrink probes** (every shrink armed for 5 s, undone on the spot if answered by an underrun or
near-miss, with a doubling backoff 60 s → 8 min on a failed sync-driven shrink; a surviving probe
resets it); **hollow re-prime** (an underrun while the depth *average* runs more than a step below
target re-primes immediately — the average, not the instant, separates a hollow ring from one late
packet, and it is seeded on prime so a fresh ring is never spuriously hollow).

Measured on a ten-minute simulation of the Wi-Fi power-save pattern (25 ms gaps / 300 ms, −50 ppm
skew): **~2000 audible events → 9.**

### Plugins, SDK and the runner

- **`category` never shipped.** The console correctly keeps `category: "library"` plugins out of the
  nav; the host reported no category for them at all. `defineLibraryPlugin` sets it and
  `sdk/src/ui.ts` forwards it — what shipped did not: `@punktfunk/host` was bumped to 0.1.2 on
  2026-07-20 and `category` landed 2026-08-05 without a bump, so the registry's 0.1.2 is the
  pre-category build. ⚠ **Inert until published.** `serveUi` now reads its own directory entry back
  and warns once when a requested category did not land.
- **Local art sync failed on a `file://` disagreement.** `local_art_bytes` decodes a `file://` value
  before testing containment; `validate_art_paths` handed the raw value to `Path::new`. Same defect
  produced both the unreachable settings and `sync (startup) failed: HostRequestError`.
- **The runner now carries SDK updates.** The copy each installed plugin runs was pinned at install
  time, so an SDK fix could never reach it.
- **`bun publish` runs `prepare`, and `prepare` needs bun2nix** — the SDK could not be published at
  all. Also fixed: a corrupt committed `bun.lock` in plugin-kit.
- **Decky client update.** `flatpak remote-info punktfunk-origin io.unom.Punktfunk` names no branch;
  the remote publishes `stable` **and** `canary`, so the ref is ambiguous and flatpak refuses it —
  ⚠ one branch being *installed* does not disambiguate, the ambiguity is on the remote. The call
  failed on every box, every time, and returned `available=False`, which the panel rendered as good
  news. Every query now names the ref in full via `_flatpak_ref()` (no subprocess), carrying the
  **scope** too, so a system-wide install is no longer invisible to a check that hardcoded `--user`.
  A check that cannot run now reports `client_error`.

### Packaging

- **The `punktfunk` group is created everywhere the udev rule needs it.** `60-punktfunk.rules`
  chgrp's the usbip vhci attach/detach nodes to a dedicated group (security review 2026-08-05 M-4:
  writing `attach` materialises an arbitrary emulated USB device, so it must not ride on `input`).
  **Four of six install paths shipped that rule in 0.25.0 without creating the group** — chgrp
  failed, nodes stayed `root:root 0644`, the virtual Deck pad silently never attached, and
  `usermod -aG punktfunk` failed outright. Fixed in arch `post_upgrade()` (only `post_install` was
  correct, so every box that reached 0.25.0 by `pacman -Syu` missed it), nix (`users.groups.punktfunk`
  did not exist), the bazzite sysext (a group is host state and cannot ride an image), and the Steam
  Deck scripts. deb and rpm were correct throughout.
- **`punktfunk-gamescope` now builds for RPM and apt**, not Arch only.
- **Arch release-rebuild prune** called a helper that cannot exist in a release rebuild. Together
  with the FFmpeg 9 repackage this closes the 0.25.0-1 → 0.25.0-2 episode in the pipeline rather
  than by hand.
- **Steam Deck `update.sh` / `install.sh`.** The web step ran `bun install --frozen-lockfile` with
  no `--ignore-scripts`, so web's `postinstall` (`bun2nix -o bun.nix`) rewrote a **tracked** file on
  every update; the SDK step below it had always passed `--ignore-scripts`, and that asymmetry is
  the whole bug. Now `--ignore-scripts` plus an explicit `bun run codegen` — provably equivalent,
  since web's `prepare` is literally `"bun run codegen"` and `src/api/gen`, `src/paraglide` and
  `src/routeTree.gen.ts` are gitignored. `--pull` restores `web/bun.nix` and `sdk/bun.nix` before
  pulling, which is lossless by construction. ⚠ Deliberately **not** `git reset --hard`: `$SRC`
  defaults to the operator's own checkout. Also: `web.env` secret hygiene — `chmod 600` sat inside
  the create-only branch, so an install set up once and only updated since kept it world-readable.
  ⚠ `packaging/debian/build-web-deb.sh`, `packaging/arch/PKGBUILD` and `packaging/rpm/punktfunk.spec`
  still lack `--ignore-scripts` for web — harmless (throwaway build trees), left as follow-up.

### Triage tooling

**`--probe-decode` described a different device from the one that streams.** The RADV
video-decode opt-in sat *after* the `--list-adapters` / `--probe-decode` / `--list-audio` / `--pair`
early exits, so the triage tool never had it. Measured on a Deck, same binary back to back: bare
`--probe-decode` printed "vulkan video decode: no", "driver decode ops: none (0x0)", "no queue
family advertises VIDEO_DECODE"; with `RADV_PERFTEST=video_decode` in the environment, "YES" and
"H.264, H.265, AV1, VP9". ⚠ **Any Deck triage that consulted it reached the opposite of the truth.**
Hoisted to the top of `run`, ahead of every early exit.

### PyroWave on Linux — Wave 2

The program's own measurement, from patch 0005's header: `encode_gpu_synchronous` goes from ~2 ms
to **15–18 ms at 95 % game load**, with the stream frame rate collapsing. PyroWave encodes on the
same shader cores a game saturates; NVENC is immune because it has its own ASIC.

- **PW1 — the GPU-priority lever had never fired on Linux.** The vendored patch requests an elevated
  global-priority queue, gated `if (!inherit_info)` — and **only Windows leaves `inherit_info` null**
  (`pyrowave_create_device_by_compat`, where Granite builds the device itself). Linux passes its own
  create-infos, Granite's `get_existing_create_info()` hands them back, `create_device` takes the
  inherit branch, and the whole block is skipped. Now wired natively in `open_inner`'s `DeviceHold`,
  ladder REALTIME → HIGH → no-priority, stepping only on refusal; a refused class can never fail the
  open. The extension probe reuses the `dev_ext_props` already fetched for `queue_family_foreign` and
  takes KHR or the EXT alias — the same spelling pf-zerocopy probes, so the two cannot disagree.
  ⭐ **Needs `CAP_SYS_NICE`**, which the packaging granted in `0.26.0-1`; without it the lever does
  nothing.
  🛑 **Corrected in `0.26.0-2`: the packaging no longer grants it, and must not.** Every channel that
  did (Arch `.install`, RPM `%caps()`, the Bazzite sysext image, the deb postinst, the NixOS
  `security.wrappers` entry) broke desktop streaming on KDE outright — field-reported on CachyOS and
  Bazzite as `KWin does not expose zkde_screencast_unstable_v1 to this client`. KWin identifies a
  client by resolving its `/proc/<pid>/exe` against an installed `.desktop`, and the kernel refuses
  that readlink to any reader whose effective set is not a superset of the target's **permitted**
  set (`cap_ptrace_access_check`) — KWin has no capabilities, so a capability-carrying host is
  unidentifiable and the restricted globals are never advertised. Neither `prctl(PR_SET_DUMPABLE, 1)`
  nor systemd `AmbientCapabilities=` rescues it; only an uncapped process is identifiable. The lever
  therefore stays wired but unexercised on a stock install (the ladder degrades to default priority),
  and is opt-in for gamescope-only hosts, which have no such identity check.
- **PW5 — two encoder handles.** `Encoder::Impl` owns exactly one each of `wavelet_img_high_res`,
  `bucket_buffer`, `meta_buffer`, `block_stat_buffer`, `payload_data`, `quant_buffer`, and
  `Impl::encode` *opens* by discarding them (an image barrier with `VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED` as the
  old layout, plus three `fill_buffer` clears). Two encodes submitted to one queue have **no**
  execution dependency in Vulkan — submission order orders the start, not the completion — so N+1's
  DWT would overwrite N's wavelet bands while N's block packing still reads them. Content-dependent
  and silent. Overlap therefore means two handles alternated, one per slot. ⚠⚠ **The landmine:**
  `sequence_count` also lives on `Impl`, and it is the **3-bit** counter stamped into every block
  header. Two handles each counting 1,2,3… put 1,1,2,2,3,3… on the wire, and the decoder restarts a
  frame only when the value *changes* — so a repeat reads as more blocks of the same frame. Depth is
  **still 1**; the handles alternate with one in flight.
- **PW3 — the fence wait moved out of submit.** PyroWave was the one backend waiting its fence inside
  `submit`.
- **PW7a — the jumbo leg was dead code.** quinn caps a peer's MTU-discovery search at
  `min(MtuDiscoveryConfig::upper_bound, the other side's advertised max_udp_payload_size)`, and
  `EndpointConfig::max_udp_payload_size` **defaults to 1472**. Nothing in the repo had ever touched
  `EndpointConfig`, so raising the host's probe ceiling could never make discovery settle above 1472
  — and the shipped mid-session grow's `settled >= sealed_datagram_bytes(target)` gate was
  unreachable on **every path that has ever existed**. Two smaller contributors fixed with it: the
  watcher stopped sampling the moment `settled >= 1472`, discarding the very climb the proof needs;
  and a session sealed above the 1500-byte default was never checked against the path at all.

  The advertisement is raised on the **client** endpoint under the same `jumbo_wire_mtu()` opt-in,
  because it is not free: quinn sizes its endpoint receive buffer
  `max_udp_payload_size × max_receive_segments × BATCH_SIZE` — on a GRO-capable Linux/Android client
  that is ~2.9 MiB at the default and **~18 MiB at jumbo** (47 KiB → 288 KiB on Apple/Windows).
  PyroWave is the codec that most wants this: it can never be re-keyed mid-stream (its client parses
  chunk-aligned AUs in windows of the `Welcome` value, read once over the C ABI), so it should
  *start* at the big shard. At an 8908-byte shard that is ~6× fewer datagrams per frame — **~49k → ~8k
  pps at 550 Mb/s**.

### Zero-copy capture

- **The dmabuf latch conflated two causes with different lifetimes.** One `AtomicBool` served both
  "the encoder repeatedly failed to import what this compositor allocates" (unrecoverable, a driver
  fact) and "the dmabuf-only capture offer never negotiated" (which can just mean the compositor was
  mid-restart). Sharing it made the second as permanent as the first: **one timeout, and every later
  session on that host captured CPU frames until the process restarted** — including sessions against
  a different compositor and a different node that had never failed at anything, with nothing said.
  Now a `RawDmabufLatch` owning both: import failures stay sticky (unchanged 3-consecutive threshold);
  negotiation timeouts get a retry budget of **2** — deliberately small, since each failure costs a
  ~10 s stall the user pays in dead air; a capture that negotiates credits the budget back; and both
  are keyed to a capture identity (node id + portal bit).
- **The zero-copy path never asked for buffer headroom.** `build_dmabuf_buffers` set
  `SPA_PARAM_BUFFERS_dataType` and stopped — no `SPA_PARAM_BUFFERS_buffers` at all, so the pool depth
  every zero-copy safety argument rests on was entirely the producer's choice and we never expressed
  a preference. Now asks for 8 (min 2, max 16) as a **Choice Range, deliberately not a fixed count**:
  SPA intersects consumer and producer params, so a fixed 8 against a producer that can only afford 4
  empties the intersection and the link stalls in "negotiating" with no error anywhere — ⚠ the exact
  trap that once cost this codebase the entire Linux cursor channel, when a 256² cursor-meta max
  failed to intersect Mutter's fixed 384². 8 buffers is ~133 ms of pool at 60 Hz and ~33 ms at 240 Hz;
  16 is a ceiling, not a request (a 4K 4:4:4 buffer is ~25 MB).
- **A PyroWave session could drop to CPU capture and log nothing.** The CPU-fallback warning was gated
  on `backend_is_vaapi`, which reads the **host-global** encoder pref — but a PyroWave session is
  negotiated **per session**, so on an NVIDIA/auto host that gate is false and the session fell out of
  every arm of the negotiation log chain while paying a full-resolution CPU pixel touch every frame.
  A degraded host and a healthy one produced identical logs. Now asks the per-session question
  (`consumer_kind`), widened to every GPU consumer and excluding only the software encoder, whose
  native input *is* CPU frames. ⚠ `pyrowave_session` must outrank `backend_is_vaapi`, because a
  PyroWave pref flips `backend_is_vaapi` on too.

### Steam-overlay input masking (Steam Deck)

On a Deck in Gaming Mode the Steam menu and the QAM are driven by the **same physical controller** the
client forwards, so opening either moved the game on the host as well — a second, invisible player.
Steam Input masks a normal game here; it cannot mask us, because masking happens on Steam Input's
virtual pad and we deliberately forward the **real** one (the virtual pad has no gyro, trackpads or
paddles).

⚠ **SDL's own gate cannot fire on a Deck.** SDL drops presses while a process has windows but no
keyboard focus, and it is on by default — but gamescope resolves focus per Xwayland ctx and the client
sits alone in its own, so the Steam overlay (which lives in the root ctx) never takes our X focus and
no `FocusOut` is ever generated. Measured on glass: with the QAM open, X input focus inside the
client's ctx stayed on its window for the whole 4 s while `GAMESCOPE_FOCUSED_APP` flipped to 769
(Steam) and `GAMESCOPE_FOCUSED_APP_GFX` stayed on the app. **That pair of atoms is the signal.**

⚠ `overlay_focus` watches them on the gamescope **root** ctx, which is *not* our own `$DISPLAY` under
`--xwayland-count 2` — hence the socket-directory walk and the flatpak filesystem line.

⚠⚠ Masking is deliberately **not** `set_forwarding`: that closes the slot and sends `GamepadRemove`,
so the game would see a controller **unplug** every time somebody opened the QAM. Every slot stays
open and only transitions stop, after flushing what the host believes is held (so a stick deflected at
overlay-open stops steering instead of freezing at its last value). On the way back, held buttons are
**adopted rather than replayed** — the A that picked a QAM row must not fire in the game as it closes
— while axes *are* re-sent, since a stick has no press to ghost and SDL only speaks on change.

### The `plugin` launch kind

The 2026-08-05 review made `launch.kind = "command"` operator-only, and a reconcile refuses on the
**first** offending entry — so rom-manager, whose every ROM is `<emulator> <args> <rom>`, stopped
putting anything in the library at all. Playnite hit the same wall and was rescued with a typed kind
the host resolves itself; there is no fixed scheme for "whichever emulator the operator configured,
with the core and flags they chose", so that trick does not generalise.

The entry now carries an **opaque key and nothing executable**, and the host asks the owning plugin
what to run at launch time, over the loopback UI port and per-boot secret it already registered.
⭐ **A stolen plugin token stops being command execution:** planting an entry is not enough, because
the live plugin answers 404 for a key it never published. Nothing executable is persisted or served to
a client, and an emulator that moved is picked up on the next launch rather than leaving a dead tile
(same reasoning as `xbox` resolving its AUMID at launch time).

⚠ **The host still spawns it**, because only the host can put the process where the stream can see it:
on Linux that is either gamescope's own argv or a spawn carrying the session's compositor env, and the
returned child is what session-game-lifetime tracks to know the game exited. A plugin spawning the
emulator itself would land it outside both.

### Verification status

| | |
|---|---|
| gamescope 0006 | 6/6 exit 0 on a release build at the real spawn shape (`2752x2064@120 --steam --xwayland-count 1`); distro control SIGSEGVs |
| Decky client update | on the Deck against the real install — pre-fix `available=False remote=''`, post-fix `available=True remote=ca010668` |
| `--probe-decode` | on a Deck, same binary back to back, with and without the RADV opt-in |
| Apple audio | builds on arm64-apple-ios17.0 (the triple that compiles the `#if os(iOS)` blocks — a plain `swift build` is macOS and skips them), arm64-apple-tvos17.0, macOS; 257 Swift tests |
| Audio jitter | 10-minute Wi-Fi power-save simulation, ~2000 → 9 audible events |
| 4:4:4 gate | test verified non-vacuous against the planted original defect |
| Steam Deck scripts | `bash -n` + shellcheck 0.11.0 clean at `-S warning`; exec bits preserved |
| Steam-overlay masking | on glass on a Deck — atom flip and X-focus non-flip both measured over a 4 s QAM open |
| PyroWave depth 2 | exercised on real hardware **without shipping depth 2** (dedicated test, shipped depth stays 1) |
| PW6 streamed AU | the trap is real, and at 2 % loss it costs exactly nothing |

⏳ **Owed on glass:** iPhone + Bluetooth listen, Apple TV stats overlay, MacBook audio listen, the
Deck HEVC/4:4:4 retest, a Windows wake-from-sleep cycle, and the PyroWave-under-game-load A/B on a
Linux host with `CAP_SYS_NICE` actually granted — the number this whole wave is aimed at. ⚠ That
last one now needs a **gamescope-only** host, or a hand-granted capability on a box you are not
streaming the KDE desktop from: see the `0.26.0-2` correction under PW1 above.

---

## v0.25.0

407 commits since v0.24.0.

### Versions

| | v0.24.0 | v0.25.0 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wire protocol | 2 | **2** | unchanged — every addition below is optional or capability-gated |
| C ABI | 14 | **17** | three steps; see below |
| Workspace crate dirs | 22 | **26** | `pf-bitstream` (+ vendored `cros-codecs`), `pf-vkdecode`, `pf-dxvadec`, `pf-vaadec` added; `pf-ffvk` removed |
| Virtual-display driver protocol | 6 | **6** | unchanged (minimum accepted still 3) |
| Windows virtual-gamepad channel | 3 | **3** | unchanged |
| Plugin index schema | 1 | **1** | unchanged |
| `api/openapi.json` | 0.23.0 | **0.24.0** | tracks API edits, lags one release by convention |

`crates/pf-driver-proto` is byte-for-byte identical to v0.24.0 — if you ship the virtual-display
driver or the gamepad channel, nothing in this release touches you.

**Why the wire did not move.** It grew a lot and still did not break: an optional trailing
`max_shard_payload: u16` on `Hello` (absent/0 = legacy, doubling as the renegotiation capability
flag and the jumbo receive ceiling); two control messages `ShardPayloadChanged` (`0x08`) and
`ShardPayloadAck` (`0x09`); a redundant desktop-audio datagram tag `0xD2` beside the plain `0xC9`; a
controller-audio plane at `0xD1`; a new `0xCD` kind `0x06`; arrival flag bits 8/9; and
`MAX_DATAGRAM_BYTES` 2048 → 9216. Old peers never send or read any of it. Bump `WIRE_VERSION` only
when the handshake or planes change *incompatibly* — riding a C-ABI bump onto the wire once locked
every new client out of every deployed host (`ABI mismatch: client 3 host 2`, observed live).

### C ABI 14 → 17

- **v15 — the rumble policy engine's C surface.** `punktfunk_connection_next_rumble_cmd`,
  `punktfunk_connection_set_rumble_quirks`, `PUNKTFUNK_RUMBLE_QUIRK_*`. These symbols are **not
  new**: they landed while the constant still read 7 and no bump was made, so every core since has
  exported them while advertising a version that never promised them. A shipped binary says what it
  says, so this cannot be corrected retroactively — **v15 is the floor that guarantees them.** At or
  above 15 the surface is present; below it, probe for the symbol. No code changed with this bump.
- **v16 — the controller-audio client surface.** `punktfunk_connection_next_pad_audio` (the `0xD1`
  per-gamepad DualSense haptics/speaker plane), `punktfunk_connection_set_pad_audio_caps`, and the
  `PUNKTFUNK_CLIENT_CAP_PAD_AUDIO` / `PUNKTFUNK_HOST_CAP_PAD_AUDIO` mirrors.
- **v17 — session end reason.** `punktfunk_connection_end_reason` + the `PUNKTFUNK_END_REASON_*`
  vocabulary: after a session ends, ask *why* — this client closed it, the host's launched game
  exited (its close carried `APP_EXITED_CLOSE_CODE`, which the host had been sending for a long time
  with nothing consuming it), the host ended it cleanly, the host reported a failure, or the
  connection was lost. Purely a read of state the core already had: **no new call is required of an
  embedder**, a client that never calls it is unchanged, and the host sends identical bytes either
  way.

### ⚠ Breaking changes

**1. 149 unprefixed macros are now `PUNKTFUNK_`-prefixed** (139 `#define`s renamed in the checked-in
header). Names as generic as `MAX_PADS`, `TAG_LEN`, `ABI_VERSION`, `WIRE_VERSION`, `INPUT_MAGIC` and
the whole `BTN_*` / `AXIS_*` family were landing in the namespace of every program that included the
header.

*What to do:* add the prefix. Values are identical; the change is mechanical.

*It cannot break silently.* The old spellings cease to exist, so this is always an
undeclared-identifier error, never a wrong value — which is precisely the failure being removed. A
colliding `#define` does **not** fail to compile: the preprocessor silently takes the last
definition, so an embedder whose own header defined `MAX_PADS` previously got a wrong value at
runtime. Associated constants are untouched; the generator already qualifies those by type name.

**2. Linux hosts: the virtual Steam Deck controller moved to its own `punktfunk` group.** The
capability rode on `input`, which every gamepad guide tells users to join — but it can emulate
arbitrary USB hardware. Operators must `usermod -aG punktfunk "$USER"` and re-login or the pad stops
attaching. Ordinary virtual gamepads are unaffected.

> **Known issue in 0.25.0, fixed after it.** Four of the six install paths shipped
> `60-punktfunk.rules` — whose `RUN+=` does `chgrp punktfunk` on the vhci `attach`/`detach` nodes —
> without ever creating the group, so the `chgrp` failed, the nodes stayed root-only, and the pad
> silently never attached. The `usermod` above also fails outright on those boxes with *group
> 'punktfunk' does not exist*. Affected: **Arch/CachyOS upgraded** rather than freshly installed
> (`post_upgrade` called only `_ensure_update_group`), the **NixOS module** (no
> `users.groups.punktfunk`), the **Bazzite sysext** (a group is host state and cannot ride an
> image), and **Steam Deck source installs** (`scripts/steamdeck/install.sh`/`update.sh` handled
> only `input`). The deb and rpm scriptlets were correct throughout — they run one `%post`/`postinst`
> on install and upgrade alike. All four now create the group, and the two that know which user
> runs the host (the Deck scripts and the NixOS module's `host.users`) add that user to it as well.
> Workaround on an unpatched box:
> `sudo groupadd --system punktfunk`, then the `usermod`, then re-login.

**3. Plugins may no longer set `launch.command` or the pre-launch command.** Both run through a
shell and are now operator-token only; a plugin that sets them is refused. Third-party plugins that
populated them need updating — use the `launcher_ui` / `xbox` launch kinds instead.

**4. Plugin UIs moved to their own origin** on a second listener (default `PORT + 1`,
`PUNKTFUNK_UI_PLUGIN_PORT`). Reverse proxies and firewalls must forward that port; a self-signed
console needs it trusted separately.

### Capability bits

Four added, all in the handshake's client/host capability bytes:

| Bit | Constant | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| client `0x04` | `CLIENT_CAP_AUDIO_RED` | can decode the redundant desktop-audio plane |
| host `0x20` | `HOST_CAP_AUDIO_RED` | is sending it |
| client `0x08` | `CLIENT_CAP_PAD_AUDIO` | can render controller audio |
| host `0x40` | `HOST_CAP_PAD_AUDIO` | is sending it |

⚠ **Pressure worth watching:** `client_caps` has four bits free; **`host_caps` is down to its last
one (`0x80`)**; `video_caps` has been full since 0.23.0 (`VIDEO_CAP_MULTI_SLICE = 0x80`). The next
video capability needs a second byte *and* an ABI bump — plan for it rather than discovering it.

### Wire planes

- **Controller audio, `0xD1`** — `[0xD1][u8 pad][u8 kind][u32 seq LE][u64 pts_ns LE][opus payload]`,
  one Opus frame per datagram behind a 15-byte header. `PAD_AUDIO_KIND_HAPTICS = 0` is the pad's
  BACK channel pair (the voice coils) at 5 ms frames; `PAD_AUDIO_KIND_SPEAKER = 1` is the FRONT pair
  at 10 ms. Best-effort like every audio plane: loss is a sequence gap concealed by the gap tracker,
  silence is a frozen sequence under the mic-mute discipline, host gating at −60 dBFS with a 250 ms
  hangover. `0xD2` (redundant desktop audio) deliberately skipped `0xD1` to reserve it for this.
- **`HidOutput::AudioCtl`** — `0xCD` kind `0x06`, carrying the DualSense output report's
  volume/routing bytes, change-only and value-deduped. Older clients drop it as an unknown kind.
- **Arrival flags** — bits 8 (haptics) and 9 (speaker), sent only toward a `HOST_CAP_PAD_AUDIO` host.
- **Adaptive-trigger effects are length-bounded** on encode and decode against one shared constant;
  the header emits `uint8_t effect[PUNKTFUNK_HID_EFFECT_MAX]` in place of a literal `11` (same value,
  so the struct layout is byte-identical). A zero-length effect body is now rejected rather than
  decoding as an empty — that is, a *release* — effect.
- Out-of-range pad indices are dropped before **either** rumble consumer sees them. The reorder gate
  bounds-checked and the legacy queue did not, so an embedder draining it could be handed an index it
  would use to subscript its own array. The client also clamps the host's rumble lease receive-side
  at 5 s, where the ceiling had been sender-side only.

### Host environment variables

| Variable | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `PUNKTFUNK_AUDIO_QUALITY` | `high` | `low`/`standard`/`high`; `high` = stereo 256 kbps. `standard` reproduces the pre-0.25 encoder exactly for an A/B. A typo warns once rather than silently downgrading. |
| `PUNKTFUNK_AUDIO_REDUNDANCY` | unset = automatic | on when the client supports it and the budget allows |
| `PUNKTFUNK_AUDIO_OUTPUT_MODE` | `client_only` | `client_only`/`host_and_client`/`follow_default`. **Windows host only.** |
| `PUNKTFUNK_PAD_AUDIO` | on | `0` disables controller audio host-wide |
| `PUNKTFUNK_PAD_AUDIO_SLOTS` | `1` | max 4; multi-pad needs an operator to raise it |
| `PUNKTFUNK_PAD_AUDIO_STAMPS` | unset | debug bisect hook |
| `PUNKTFUNK_WIRE_MTU` | unset | pins on-wire IP MTU for all sessions; above 1500 also enables jumbo |
| `PUNKTFUNK_JUMBO` | unset (off) | fixed 9000-MTU profile |
| `PUNKTFUNK_UI_PLUGIN_PORT` | `PORT + 1` | the plugin-UI origin |
| `PUNKTFUNK_LIBRARY_ART_ROOTS` | platform default | art-serving roots; POSIX now defaults to `$HOME` |
| `PUNKTFUNK_DECODER` | client | **values changed**: `native-vulkan` · `native-vaapi` (Linux) · `native-d3d11va` (Windows) · `software`. Legacy `vulkan`/`vaapi`/`d3d11va` still accepted and migrated. Now **trimmed** — a trailing space used to fall through to `auto` silently. |
| `PUNKTFUNK_VAAPI_DEVICE` | client | **new** — pin the VAAPI render node |
| `PUNKTFUNK_DUMP_VIDEO` / `PUNKTFUNK_AU_DUMP` | client | **new** — capture exact decoder input / the AU as it arrived from the host |
| `PUNKTFUNK_AU_FAULT=drop\|truncate\|flip[:period]` | client | **new** — deliberate decoder-input corruption for recovery testing; native rungs only |
| `PUNKTFUNK_NVENC_SPLIT_ARBITRATE=1` | host | **new** — opt-in live split-encode arbitration (Linux-wired) |
| `PUNKTFUNK_NO_AUDIO_MINT` | host (Win) | **new** — opt out of minted endpoints; restores the name ladder |
| `PUNKTFUNK_GPU_PRIORITY` | host (Win) | **removed** — superseded by `PUNKTFUNK_GPU_PRIORITY_CLASS`, a strict superset |
| `PUNKTFUNK_FFMPEG_LOG` | client | **removed** with the av_log machinery |

Legacy `PUNKTFUNK_HOST_AUDIO=1` and `PUNKTFUNK_KEEP_DEFAULT=1` still work, mapping to
`host_and_client` and `follow_default`; `follow_default` wins if both are set. New devtest command:
`punktfunk-host pad-endpoint ensure|remove|status`.

### Security

- **Origin isolation.** A second listener serves `/plugin-ui/**` and nothing else; the console origin
  refuses those paths and the plugin origin refuses everything else, `/api/**` above all. Different
  origin (scheme+host+port) so same-origin policy *is* the boundary; same site so the `SameSite=Lax`
  session cookie still flows. Bind failure disables plugin UIs rather than falling back.
  `x-pf-listener` is stripped inbound and set by the entry; active ports republish as
  `*_PORT_ACTIVE`; the plugin origin's CSP names the console as its only `frame-ancestors`; the proxy
  allowlist drops the plugin's `Clear-Site-Data`, `Access-Control-Allow-Origin` and `Set-Cookie`.
  ⚠ The kit's `postMessage(..., "*")` is **load-bearing** — narrowing it to `location.origin` would
  target the plugin's own origin and drop every message.
- **Authorization is an allowlist with a build-time gate.** `plugin_may_access` is a list of
  permitted `(method, path)` pairs with `{}` segment matching, enforced by a test that walks the live
  route table and **fails the build on any unclassified route** — the block-list it replaces let new
  endpoints through silently. Field authority is tracked separately from route reachability:
  requests carry the lane that authorized them, and `prep` / `launch.kind = "command"` are
  operator-token only.
- **Art serving** gained an extension whitelist plus magic-byte sniffing, canonicalize-or-refuse, UNC
  refusal, config-dir exclusion and root checking, with `file://` percent-decoded *before*
  canonicalization so `%2e%2e` cannot hide. Validation also runs at write time, so an unservable path
  can no longer be persisted.

### Native decode — FFmpeg is gone from the client

268 files, +129k / −25k. `cargo tree -p punktfunk-client-session` finds zero `ffmpeg`. **The host
keeps `libavcodec` unconditionally** (pf-encode); no host workflow, packaging script or licence file
was touched.

| Platform | v0.24.0 | v0.25.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Linux desktop | ffmpeg-next: Vulkan hwcontext (`pf-ffvk`) → VAAPI → libavcodec sw | `pf-vkdecode` (ash, presenter's own `VkDevice`, zero-copy) → `pf-vaadec` (dlopen'd libva, DRM-PRIME dmabuf) → `openh264` + `rav1d` |
| Windows desktop | ffmpeg-next Vulkan → libavcodec D3D11VA half | `pf-vkdecode` → `pf-dxvadec` (plans into `ID3D11VideoDecoder`) → `openh264` + `rav1d` |
| Android | MediaCodec (never had FFmpeg) | unchanged |
| Apple | VideoToolbox (never had FFmpeg) | unchanged |

**Workspace members:** added `pf-bitstream` (+ vendored `cros-codecs`, compiler-enforced
`unsafe`-free), `pf-vkdecode`, `pf-dxvadec`, `pf-vaadec`; removed `pf-ffvk`. **Deleted:**
`video_vulkan.rs`, `video_vaapi.rs`, `video_libav.rs`, the libavcodec half of `video_d3d11.rs`, the
`av_log` machinery, `ffmpeg::codec::Id` as decoder vocabulary, `DecodedImage::VkFrame`/`::Dmabuf`,
the `ffmpeg-fallback` feature, and swscale — and with it the BT.601 default its correction code
existed to undo.

**Software rung:** `openh264 = "0.9"` (BSD-2) and `rav1d = { version = "1", default-features =
false, features = ["bitdepth_8"] }` (BSD-2). `dav1d-sys` was rejected because it is `system-deps`-
only and would add a system library plus a `.pc` to every client package. `default-features = false`
drops `asm` — rav1d's `build.rs` *panics* without nasm, unlike openh264-sys2, which degrades quietly.
**`bitdepth_8` only** ⇒ software AV1 refuses 10-bit by contract, read from the sequence header before
any byte reaches the decoder.

**⚠ HEVC has no CPU floor.** An HEVC session that exhausts its hardware rungs tears down and re-dials
advertising HEVC-less caps, and the host picks H.264 (`last_rung_verdict` / `NoSoftwareRung`). This is
a first-class path, not a failure.

**Rung × codec × hardware evidence** (`native_evidence`) — the admission filter is driven by this, so
an unproven rung yields only to one that is both verified for the codec and usable on the device:

| Rung | Codecs | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| `native-vulkan` | H.264, H.265 Main/Main10/4:4:4 | **yes** — bit-exact vs libavcodec, 250/250 AUs on 3 drivers + 92-min soak |
| | AV1 | **yes** — 250/250 bit-identical on one vendor, no soak |
| `native-d3d11va` | H.264, H.265 | **yes** — frame-hash parity on RTX 4090 + AMD iGPU, 30-min soak |
| | AV1 | **not proven** — decoded 4K60 once, no parity, no soak ⇒ excluded from the filter |
| `native-vaapi` | H.264, H.265, AV1 | **NO — has never decoded a frame anywhere**; no VAAPI hardware was reachable |
| `software` | H.264 (openh264), AV1 (rav1d) | **not proven**; openh264 has never run on glass. No HEVC at all. |

Vendor order (unchanged): Linux NVIDIA/AMD `vk → vaapi → sw`; Linux Intel/unknown
`vaapi → vk → sw`; Windows NVIDIA/AMD `vk → d3d11va → sw`; Windows Intel/unknown
`d3d11va → vk → sw`.

**AV1 advertisement** now answers from device facts (`av1_hardware_decodable`: Vulkan `DECODE_AV1`
queue op, or the Windows D3D11 import path) rather than `ffmpeg::decoder::find(AV1)`, which was true
on any build linking libdav1d. **Settings migration:** stored `vulkan`/`vaapi`/`d3d11va` migrate to
`native-*` at decoder construction *and* at each dialog's lookup — the second is load-bearing, since
an unmatched value renders as "Automatic" and a save would silently rewrite the preference.

### The three decode data-loss bugs

**AV1 sub-frame truncation — shipped in v0.24.0, host-side.** NVENC sub-frame readback has two halves
armed by *different* conditions: `build_init_params` arms the writer from `subframe_on` alone, while
the chunked reader additionally requires `slices >= 2` — and `resolve_slices` returns `1` for AV1
unconditionally, because AV1 partitions via tiles, not slices. So an AV1 session told the driver to
publish tile-by-tile and then took only the first tile. Measured at 4K60: every AU carried a header
declaring two tile rows plus a single Tile Group OBU with `tg_start = tg_end = 0`; libdav1d rejected
**835/836** AUs. NVIDIA's *hardware* decoder accepts it (so Vulkan Video looked healthy at 60 fps);
its DXVA path did not. 1080p is one tile and unaffected; 4K splits into two tile rows and loses half
the picture. Fixed by disarming sub-frame for AV1 while leaving `split_mode` untouched — AV1 keeps
every engine. Arming the reader instead is *not* a drop-in: the reader cuts at
`bitstreamSizeInBytes` on the reasoning that slices are contiguous Annex-B, which AV1 OBUs are not.
Post-fix 654/654 clean. The test that had pinned the old behaviour as *correct* is replaced by one
pinning the disarm, plus one comparing the reader's gate against the writer's — the comparison
nothing made.

**HEVC DPB from the level ceiling — new in this release, client-side.** `dpb_limit` computed
`max(A-2_level_ceiling, sps_max_dec_pic_buffering_minus1 + 1)`. HEVC equation A-2 is a **ceiling on
what an SPS may legally signal**, not a statement of need, and it branches on picture size against
the *level's* `MaxLumaPs`. The host is blameless: NVENC autoselects L5.1 because the bitrate exceeds
L5.0's ceiling, and signals six pictures at every resolution. At 720p and 1080p the A-2 branch yields
16 frames / **17 slots** — one more than NVIDIA's `maxDpbSlots` of 16 — so every AU fell outside
device caps, flushed, waited for an IRAP, and the fresh IDR needed 17 again; rungs exhausted, and
there is no software HEVC. It hid because the path was only ever exercised at 4K, the one size that
falls through to the honest answer. Fixed to `buffering.min(16)`: the `max()` bought no tolerance,
since `Dpb::needs_bumping` already evicts at the signalled depth — it only over-allocated ten
surfaces per 1080p session. **H.264 escaped by luck** (its ceiling lands at 13 for 1080p) and is left
alone, because H.264's DPB size genuinely *is* level-derived absent a VUI `bitstream_restriction`.

**rav1d aborts the process — new in this release, client-side.** rav1d 1.1.0 `abort()`s on *any*
decode error while holding one frame context: the `c.fc.len() == 1` branch decodes inline, always
finishes in `rav1d_decode_frame_exit` which unconditionally takes `frame_hdr`, then on `Err` re-enters
an `on_error` whose first act is `frame_hdr.as_ref().unwrap()` on the `None` it just left. The panic
unwinds into `dav1d_send_data`, which is `extern "C"` ⇒ `panic_cannot_unwind` ⇒ `abort()`. **No
`catch_unwind`, no rung demotion and no refusal can catch it**, and every `rav1d_*` entry is
`pub(crate)`, so no in-process guard is possible. 4K was only *where* the first error happened — the
CPU rung does 35–39 fps against a 60 fps stream, the backlog stopped draining, the pump flushed to
live, and the next AU referenced undecoded frames. Fixed by opening with `n_fc >= 2` and asking
`dav1d_get_frame_delay` what the settings actually bought. Decode now drains **past** the first
`EAGAIN`, which is why two frame contexts cost no latency (20–42 ms/unit at `n_fc=2` vs 21–53 at
`n_fc=1`). On glass: 4K60 AV1 was SIGABRT on the second frame every run; after, exit 0 with 1204
frames and 13 decode errors recovered across 17 backlog flushes. Reported upstream as **rav1d#1497**
with a reproducer. Does **not** make the CPU rung panic-proof.

**Settings loader BOM — shipped in v0.24.0, client-side.** `.and_then(|s| from_str(&s).ok())` turned
every parse failure into `Default`. `Set-Content -Encoding UTF8` writes `EF BB BF`, serde_json
correctly rejects at byte 0, and every setting vanished silently. A shared `load_json_or_default` now
strips the BOM and warns with path plus serde line/column, covering settings, known-hosts (where a
BOM silently unpaired every host) and profiles on both desktop clients. The result is deliberately
still `Default`, never an error.

### Other decode/encode

- **Intel Arc pNext ordering.** `vkGetPhysicalDeviceVideoCapabilitiesKHR` was called with the codec
  caps struct chained *before* `VkVideoDecodeCapabilitiesKHR` (`push_next` prepends). Arc/Windows
  fills those two **by position, not by sType**, and returned them swapped — we read a level as a
  capability bitmask. Measured A/B: `decode_flags_raw=12 max_level_idc=1` before,
  `decode_flags_raw=1 max_level_idc=12` after. NVIDIA and RADV dispatch by sType, which is why the
  fleet stayed green. ⚠ **This does not yet give Arc Vulkan Video** — the refusal only moves down: the
  device advertises only COINCIDE, and its NV12 coincide entry does not advertise `SAMPLED` usage,
  which the zero-copy presenter needs. Unresolved whether that is ours or an Intel constraint.
- **NVENC split encode.** The 10-bit rule sat *above* the pixel-rate arm and took no codec, so it
  vetoed 10-bit 4K120 — the exact case the pixel-rate arm exists for — and applied an
  HEVC-Main10-on-Ada result to AV1 10-bit, which has no such measurement. Re-measured on Ada and
  Blackwell: 4K60 2.06×, 5120×1440@240 1.31×, 4K120 1.89× — **split wins at every mode on both
  architectures, including the configuration the veto came from.** New order: env override →
  pixel-rate arm (now taking `max_forced_split_mode(engines)`, not a hard-coded 2) →
  HEVC-Main10-below-the-bar → AUTO. Operator over-asks are clamped with a warning because **the driver
  honours an over-ask and silently encodes narrower**. Also newly logged: HEVC + plain AUTO +
  sub-frame is **silently single-engine** — the fleet's default shape, and nothing said so.
  ⚠ **Unvalidated consequence:** 5120×1440@240 Main10 now clears the pixel-rate bar and *will* be
  forced to split — the exact configuration the old veto came from. `PUNKTFUNK_SPLIT_ENCODE=0` is the
  escape.
- **PyroWave on Windows stamped over the host's GPU scheduling policy.** It raised the process WDDM
  class to HIGH at every session open, while `auto_priority_gate` already owns that process-wide —
  starting at HIGH, *upgrading* to REALTIME once safe, and leaving a monitor that drops back when VRAM
  tightens (REALTIME + NVIDIA + HAGS + near-full VRAM is a documented NVENC hang). Opening PyroWave
  stamped HIGH back and **orphaned the monitor's decision**. Removed rather than reconciled.
- **A `pf-vkdecode` AV1 use-after-free fix had stabilised the wrong pointer** —
  `OwnedStdAv1SequenceHeader` kept the Std struct *inline*, so `pStdSequenceHeader` was a dead stack
  address; it worked only because NVIDIA happened to retain `pColorConfig` instead. Std structs are
  now boxed inside each owning wrapper, and create-time arrays are fields of the stored parameters
  assembled at their final address. The same shape was fixed pre-emptively in H.264/H.265.

### A/V sync — it did not previously exist

The host has always stamped `pts_ns` on every audio datagram. **Every client decoded it into
`AudioPacket` / `AudioPCM` and never read it.** Video's `pts_ns` was used end to end; audio free-ran
at whatever depth its jitter ring reached; nothing compared them. The A/V offset was an emergent
property of buffer depths — it moved whenever the ring ratcheted under underrun pressure, and it got
**worse every time video got faster**, because a quicker decoder lowers the video leg and leaves
audio's where it was. That is why shaving milliseconds off the audio budget had never helped.

Two host defects were prerequisites:
- **`pts_ns` was stamped at encode time**, inside the loop draining an already-accumulated chunk, so
  every frame of a chunk carried near-identical timestamps describing *when we got round to
  encoding*. Now derived from the chunk's arrival instant minus queued-frame duration, re-anchored
  per chunk.
- **The host did not pace.** One capture callback hands over a whole quantum (5 ms honoured, **21.3 ms
  on a VM**, where stock PipeWire raises `min-quantum` to 1024), drained into back-to-back
  `send_datagram` calls — a 4–5 frame burst then ~21 ms of nothing, which a ring could only absorb by
  standing a burst period deep. Frames now leave on the audio clock (`FRAME_INTERVAL` 5 ms,
  `PACE_MAX_SLEEP` 10 ms, `PACE_REANCHOR` 100 ms). Costs no average latency.

```
audio_e2e = (now + buffered_ahead + clock_offset) − pts_ns
av_offset = audio_e2e − video_e2e            (> 0 ⇒ audio behind the picture)
```

`AvSync` EWMAs it (`AV_EWMA_TAU_MS = 2000`), ignores anything inside `AV_DEADBAND_MS = 10`, waits
`AV_MIN_OBSERVATIONS = 100` before a first correction, and **refuses rather than clamps** beyond
`AV_SANE_LIMIT_MS = 1000` — a wall-clock step must not steer the ring.

⭐ **Video is the master, and continuity outranks sync.** `JitterPolicy::set_sync_target` takes only a
*request*, clamped between the existing underrun-driven adaptive floor and the hard cap: a link whose
jitter genuinely needs more buffer than the picture is away keeps its buffer, and the residual is
reported rather than forced. `None`/`nil` reproduces prior behaviour bit-identically, which is how
the four rings adopted it one at a time.

Per client: the Rust desktop reference is a new `video_e2e_ns` atomic beside `clock_offset`, written
by the presenter and read by the audio thread. **Android** publishes `OnFrameRendered` — the one
place that knows a frame *latched* — **raw, not floor-shaved** (the HUD shaves the OS present floor;
sound must reach the ear when light reaches the eye), and stays inert below API 33 rather than
substituting the release instant, which targets a future vsync 8–21 ms ahead of glass. **Apple**
publishes its `LatencyMeter` sample as an *expiring level*, because that client has a backgrounded
keep-alive that keeps audio playing while dropping video decode; its clamp raises the ceiling to the
floor rather than `min(max(…))`, which on a device whose callback quantum alone exceeds the hard cap
would otherwise hand back the cap, silently below the continuity floor.

Escape hatches: `PUNKTFUNK_NO_AV_SYNC=1` everywhere, plus
`adb shell setprop debug.punktfunk.no_av_sync 1` on Android (a launcher-started app inherits no
environment). Observability: `buffer_ms`/`target_ms` had only ever been a `tracing::debug!` line —
and on a Deck the client runs under Steam's `reaper` with stdout on a pipe nobody can read, so the
one number identifying a deep ring was unobtainable *on the device reporting the latency*. Now on the
HUD and in the 1 Hz stats log on every client.

### Decode-target aliasing — caught before it shipped

⚠ **None of this ever shipped.** `git ls-tree v0.24.0 crates/` has no `pf-vkdecode`, `pf-dxvadec`,
`pf-vaadec` or `pf-bitstream`; v0.24.0's decode rungs were libavcodec. This was a ship-blocker for
the new stack, cleared — not a field bug.

Three of the four native rungs released a picture's surface **inside the plan→submission
conversion**, then assigned the decode target a slot. `SlotMap::assign` returns the *lowest free
slot* — the one just vacated. The submission then named one surface as both decode target and its own
reference: `CurrPicTextureIndex == RefFrameMapTextureIndex[k]` on DXVA, or `pSetupReferenceSlot`
sharing an array layer with `pReferenceSlots` on Vulkan. **Decode into the surface you are predicting
from.**

- **AV1 / D3D11VA** — AV1 applies `refresh_frame_flags` *after* decode (7.20), so "read a slot then
  overwrite it" is the ordinary case: **268 of the vendored vector's 274 frames**, first at frame 6.
- **H.264 / both Vulkan and D3D11VA** — `H264Planner` snapshots `dpb_refs` in `begin_picture`, before
  8.2.5 marking and the C.4.5.3 bump, so a picture the sliding window unmarks and the bump evicts
  lands in *both* `dpb_refs` and `dpb.removed`. Both conditions coincide only in low-delay H.264 —
  and NVENC guarantees it (`max_num_ref_frames = 3` alongside `max_dec_frame_buffering = 3`, plus
  `max_num_reorder_frames = 0`). Result: **297 of every 300 access units of every stream a punktfunk
  host emits**, at every resolution, on both rungs.
- **H.265 is exempt, now measured rather than argued** — 0 of 120 aliases, with a counterfactual that
  moves the snapshot one call earlier and reproduces 115 of 120.
- **VAAPI's exemption was incidental**: the precondition is fully present (117 of 120 AUs) but
  `plan_to_va` never invents a surface. That held only because three call sites happened to write
  `free_surface()` and `surface_table()` adjacently; `acquire_target` now returns index, surface and
  table together so a later edit cannot split them.

Fix is uniform: the plans grow `release_after_decode`, conversions hand removals back, callers
release once the decode op is issued. Costs no slot (`SlotMap::new` allocates `max_dpb_frames + 1`).
Both rungs hold the `Result` rather than `?`-ing it so the deferred release runs on failure paths —
seven exits sat between conversion and release, each of which would have leaked a slot.

**Why four gates missed it**, all recorded: the conformance vector is *structurally blind* (level 1.3,
no VUI `bitstream_restriction` ⇒ a 7-frame DPB against 2 reference frames, and it reorders) and
passed 250/250 for two milestones; **a test had encoded the bug as correct**; another assertion was
*vacuous* (it asserted the decode target was never also a reference while handing every picture its
own never-reused surface id — distinct integers cannot collide); and **it streamed clean** — *"the
2026-08-07 field sessions that looked clean were looking at wrong pixels."*

`gpu_parity` is now **11 legs** (not 9 — that note was written mid-PR): each decodes a vendored stream,
reads back every output frame's NV12, crops to the display region and SHA-256s in *display order*
against libavcodec goldens, frame count and flush tail included. The three new legs are our own
encoder's output rather than conformance vectors — H.264 because the vector is blind to the shape,
H.265 because an exemption with no stream behind it is how the H.264 defect survived two milestones,
AV1 because the vector is one tile on all 274 frames while our encoder splits 4K into two tile rows,
so every tile array the conversions fill had only ever been written at index 0. `video_vaapi_native`
parity is new entirely: 7 legs, bit-identical on RDNA3.

⚠ Promoting D3D11VA AV1 to `verified` **changes rung selection** on Windows Intel/unknown vendors, not
just a label. VAAPI stays `verified = false` deliberately — one vendor, never soaked; flipping it
would move `auto` off Vulkan Video on every Linux AMD/Intel client including the Deck.

### FFmpeg 9, and the Arch soname trap

`pf-encode` now builds against **FFmpeg 9**. The host still links libavcodec unconditionally; the
client has none (see above).

⚠ **`pacman` is the only one of our packaging formats that does not derive dependencies from ELF
`DT_NEEDED`.** rpm auto-generates `libavcodec.so.62()(64bit)`, `dpkg-shlibdeps` emits `libavcodec62`,
nix pins the closure — but a bare `depends=('ffmpeg')` let `pacman -Syu` walk the host across a
soname bump with no warning and no conflict. FFmpeg 8 → 9 (`2:9.0-5`: libavutil .60→.61, libavcodec
.62→.63, libavfilter .11→.12, libavdevice .62→.63, libswscale .9→.10) therefore **bricked every
Arch/CachyOS install**: the dynamic loader cannot start the binary, so it is **exit 127 before
`main()`** in a systemd restart loop, with nothing in the host's own log to explain it.
`ldd /usr/bin/punktfunk-host | grep "not found"` is the one-line diagnosis.

⭐ The fix is **SONAME deps, not a hand-written version bound**: `depends=(… 'libavcodec.so'
'libavutil.so' …)`. Arch's ffmpeg declares matching `provides=(libavcodec.so=63-64 …)`, and makepkg
rewrites each bare `libfoo.so` into `libfoo.so=<soname>-<arch>` by reading the built binary's
`DT_NEEDED` — so the bound tracks whatever FFmpeg the builder linked against with nothing to
maintain across the next bump. A literal `ffmpeg<2:9` would go stale on every bump. pacman now
refuses the upgrade instead of bricking the install. All seven libs are listed even though
`--as-needed` currently drops two: an unlinked soname is left bare by makepkg and satisfied by any
ffmpeg, so listing it costs nothing and a future link picks up the bound automatically.

🛑 **The v0.25.0 Arch packages shipped with that bound pointing at the WRONG FFmpeg — install
`punktfunk-host 0.25.0-2` or newer.** The soname fix and the FFmpeg-9 build landed as one merge;
the release tag was pushed four minutes later, while the CI builder image was still being
rebuilt. arch.yml deliberately runs no `-Syu` ("the image's snapshot IS the build environment"),
so the release was linked against FFmpeg 8 and published `libavcodec.so=62-64` — a bound no
up-to-date Arch box can satisfy. It fails *safely* (pacman refuses; nothing bricks), but it fails
**loudly and broadly**: pacman prepares one transaction, so an unsatisfiable dependency of ours
stopped affected users' entire `pacman -Syu`. `0.25.0-2` is the identical source rebuilt against
FFmpeg 9. Only Arch was exposed — every other format derives its dependency from the ELF at build
time and could not disagree with itself this way.

Two guards now stand where only a convention did. arch.yml compares the builder's libav
`provides` against the live repos before building and `-Syu`s itself if they differ; and no
package is published until a **pristine-`--dbpath`** `pacman -U --print` resolves it, which asks
"would a real, up-to-date Arch box install this?" instead of "does the builder happen to satisfy
it?" — the distinction that let this ship. Keeping `ci/arch-ci.Dockerfile` current is still the
cheap path; the guards are the backstop.

### Linux playback filled the buffer ceiling

The PipeWire playback callback sized its writes from the mapped buffer's **capacity** — PipeWire's
quantum limit, 8192 frames ≈ 170 ms — instead of the graph's per-cycle ask (`pw_buffer.requested`).
Every cycle queued up to 170 ms of PCM downstream of the ring **and** taught `JitterPolicy` that the
device drains 170 ms per callback, so the underrun floor (want + one frame) rose above any depth the
A/V sync loop could request: sync measured audio ~280 ms late and was then forbidden — **by its own
continuity rule** — from draining it. The first on-glass run of the latency overhaul showed exactly
that: `audio buffer 272 ms, a/v +284 ms`, stable. Now honours `requested` (capacity remains both the
ceiling and the fallback when `requested == 0`) and logs requested-vs-capacity once per stream.
Needs libpipewire ≥ 0.3.49; every ship target clears it.

### Windows audio substrate

The host now mints its **own** devnodes from Valve's INFs (`SteamStreamingSpeakers.inf` /
`SteamStreamingMicrophone.inf` under `{CommonProgramFiles(x86)}\Steam\drivers\Windows10\…`) instead
of bundling VB-CABLE.

- **Two persistent endpoints**, `Punktfunk Speakers` (client-only loopback sink — the wiring plan
  parks the default playback on it during a stream, its WASAPI loopback feeds the encoder, the host
  stays silent) and `Punktfunk Microphone` (host writes decoded client voice into the render side;
  the capture side surfaces as the mic). Both survive host restarts and re-resolve by marker.
- **Identity is the recorded endpoint id, never the name** — a minted instance is name-identical to
  Steam's primaries. Durable marker `PunktfunkAudioRole` (1 = Speakers, 2 = Mic) under Device
  Parameters. Name stamping is device-desc + device-name **only**: a wider stamp set makes
  `AudioEndpointBuilder` re-mint under a new GUID. Best-effort via the SYSTEM ACL route; on failure
  the endpoint still wires and simply keeps the driver's default name.
- **Format stamps are per-direction.** Render gets the PCM16-device / float-mix stereo split; capture
  gets the **device-format key only** — mix and host-format keys are render-engine properties, and
  stamping them onto a capture endpoint breaks its shared-mode graph (`IsFormatSupported` reports
  2ch/48k fine, `Initialize` then fails `0x88890008`).
- **`MintedIds` is tier-0 in the wiring plan.** The mic takes its minted device outright (paired by
  provider id — a name search cannot distinguish it from the primary); the loopback prefers the
  minted sink at the head of the silent tier. Below that the old ladder is unchanged: Steam primaries
  → cable → real hardware. `PUNKTFUNK_MIC_DEVICE` still beats everything.
- **Mic-vs-loopback arbitration**: the mic may hold the Streaming Microphone only while the loopback
  still gets a non-last-resort pick; otherwise the loopback takes it and `mic_withheld` is set. This
  fixes a field case where a headless Steam-only host streamed **silence**.
- **New `AudioReadiness`** — `Full` / `AudioOnly` / `MicOnly` / `Nothing`, logged on every plan
  change and surfaced at `GET /api/v1/status` → `RuntimeStatus.audio` (`AudioWiring`, Windows-only,
  absent before the first wiring pass; a status poll triggers no COM work or `IPolicyConfig` writes).
  The console Dashboard renders it as an "Audio wiring" card.
- **Requires Steam installed** (never running) — without the INFs the host streams video only, and
  picks the drivers up automatically if Steam is installed later. Opt out entirely with
  `PUNKTFUNK_NO_AUDIO_MINT`, which restores the previous name-based ladder exactly.
- ⚠ **VB-CABLE is no longer bundled but is deliberately NOT uninstalled** — it is a third-party
  shared component other apps may use, and it stays in the ladder as a live fallback. Demoting it was
  considered and rejected: on a box where minting transiently fails, that would let the Steam
  Streaming Microphone outrank an installed cable, steal the silent sink and make stream audio
  audible on the host.
- ⚠ **The minted endpoints survive Punktfunk's uninstall by design** (they are plain instances of
  Steam's drivers and are inert without the host). There is no user-facing removal path; cleanup is
  the devtest `punktfunk-host audio-probe cleanup`.
- New devtest: `punktfunk-host audio-probe ssm|sink|sss-primary|mint|plan|micpitch|micpins|cleanup`.
  `plan` is the field-triage command; `micpins` maps exclusive+shared `IsFormatSupported` across
  {1,2}ch × {16,32}bit × {44.1,48,96}kHz on both mic pins.

### Apple audio

- **The microphone was never in the render graph.** On the combined (voice-processing) engine — made
  default a week earlier and never run on a device — the input node carried a tap and **no
  connection**, so nothing pulled it: the IO unit came up, the recording indicator lit for a beat,
  and not one buffer ever reached the tap, with no error and no failed start. The 10 s silence
  tripwire counts *captured* frames, so it never fired. Input now runs through a silent sink into the
  main mixer at `outputVolume = 0` (Apple's own voice-processing sample topology). Two more: the tap
  read the input format **before** `prepare()`, and enabling voice processing swaps in the VPIO unit
  and renegotiates, so the pre-swap read could be 0 Hz / 0 ch; and a mic-chain failure on the
  voice-processed engine took the whole uplink down for the session — it now falls back to the split
  path, because **the mic outranks the AEC**.
- **No packet-loss concealment on the one client that decodes Opus in core.** Linux, Windows and
  Android all feed an `AudioGapTracker` and synthesize libopus PLC; the in-core path had the tracker
  sitting unused in the same crate and decoded only packets that arrived. At ~200 packets/s of 5 ms
  frames every lost datagram was a hard time-domain gap — one click per loss. The redundant plane
  (`0xD2`) hides single losses, so the survivors were exactly the burstier gaps that most needed
  concealing. Concealed frames now land in front of the arriving frame in one contiguous buffer, a
  DTX marker advances accounting without being decoded, and the output buffer is pre-sized for a full
  concealment run so the borrow-until-next-call pointer cannot dangle (50 ms cap).
- **The Apple jitter ring never grew.** The shared Rust `JitterPolicy` has an adaptive target floor;
  the hand-written Apple mirror mirrored the *shed* half but not the *growth* half, pinning its
  target at the 20 ms base forever. On Wi-Fi that bunches arrivals, 20 ms is regularly shorter than
  one delivery stall, so the ring re-primed through every stall for the whole session. Now the full
  `note_read` mirror: 3 underruns in a 5 s window grow the target 10 ms (capped at CoreAudio's 70),
  30 s of quiet steps back, and the write-side hard trim follows the grown target.

### Clients

- **Nothing in the desktop console had ever been clickable.** `SkiaOverlay::handle_event` matched
  only `KeyDown` and `TextInput`, so every mouse button, wheel and touch contact fell past the console
  into the run loop, which routes pointer input exclusively at `stream.capture` — `None` while
  browsing. New `Overlay::handle_pointer` carries mouse/touch in swapchain pixels; the run loop
  converts (it owns the window and hence display scale); the console hit-tests the rects it drew last
  frame. Only **direct** touch devices are offered — an indirect trackpad already drives the mouse.
  Widgets act on **press**, not release, because both carousels scroll the focused item toward centre
  and what you pressed would slide out from under your finger. Host menu on Up from a saved tile;
  `UpdateHost` edits **in place** (remove-and-re-add would silently drop the fingerprint, learned MAC,
  pinned cards and profile binding), and `ForgetHost` arms on first press and fires on second.
- **Discovery went permanently deaf three ways**, each needing an app relaunch: a failed resolve was
  never retried (`browseResultsChangedHandler` fires only when the result *set* changes, and a host
  whose resolve failed is still in the set); a stuck resolve never ended (`NWConnection` has no
  timeout, so the throwaway UDP flow could sit in `.preparing` forever, and a service with a
  connection in flight was skipped); and an `NWBrowser` parking in `.waiting` was ignored — **which is
  exactly where iOS's local-network privacy prompt lands on first launch, and granting it does not
  revive the browser that was already waiting.** A 1 Hz sweep now times out stuck resolves, retries
  failed ones on a 1→30 s backoff, and re-arms a dead browser; the advert's TXT is re-read on every
  browse report. `discovery::Rescan` forces a fresh mdns-sd query — the browse otherwise re-queries on
  a doubling backoff **capped at one hour**, so a long-lived browse is effectively passive. ⚠
  `clients/windows/src/discovery.rs` is a **second copy** of the browse that the earlier IPv4 pinning
  missed; it took an arbitrary first address, so a host whose OS responder answered AAAA rendered a
  card that failed on every click.
- **Phone gyro mirror**, off by default, player 1 / wire pad 0 only, and only while that pad has no
  motion source of its own. iOS/iPadOS only on Apple (`DeviceGyro` wraps `CMDeviceMotion` at ~100 Hz
  on a dedicated serial queue — the controller path's main-queue delivery is a known jitter source);
  Android phones with a gyroscope at ~200 Hz with `maxReportLatencyUs = 0`, since batching is poison
  for gyro aim. Both rotate from the device's natural frame into the controller frame by interface
  orientation, and both send **one zero-gyro sample on stand-down** — the host holds motion as state
  and re-emits it, so a leftover nonzero angular velocity reads as endless rotation.
- **Safe-area resolution** is purely a *sizing* change — no layout change, no input change; pointer
  mapping follows for free since both clients derive the picture rect from the live host mode. Full
  native height, width less left+right safe insets. Portrait settings screens report the housing on
  `top` with zero horizontal insets, so the portrait top inset stands in (gated so an iPad's status
  bar never fabricates one). Android adds the rounded-corner radius, which it does not count as
  cutout. Both even-floor and clamp, because `validate_dimensions` rejects odd dimensions and an inset
  subtraction lands odd about half the time.
- **Gamepad UI**: six sections (Stream · Video · Audio · Controller · Interface · Profiles, plus Input
  on the desktop console) walked with L1/R1 with per-section cursor memory; 12 palettes under one
  shared `ui_palette` key, Violet keeping its explicit sixteen colours so existing installs are an
  identity transform. Presentation only → **device preference, never part of a profile**. Palette
  maths ported three times (Rust/Swift/Kotlin) with the same assertions pinned in each language;
  `every_palette_is_multi_tone` fails under 45° hue spread and caught Ember at 35° and Graphite at 3°.
  Three render-only findings: additive blending blows out over a pale ground, a white scrim at the
  dark field's strength bleaches the gradient, and white glass over a bright field needs more body.

### Session and game lifetime

- **`PunktfunkEndReason` replaces a single "closed" bit** (ABI 17, additive, wire untouched). Five
  values — local, game exited, host ended, host error, lost — classified by the connection watcher
  from close codes already on the wire (`APP_EXITED_CLOSE_CODE` had been sent for a long time with
  nothing consuming it). **Latched before the shutdown flag**, because the two are read by different
  threads and the reason must never arrive second. Exposed as `punktfunk_connection_end_reason` +
  `is_normal()`. Shells fall back to the old wording when there is no verdict (older core, or a close
  that raced the read).
- **The Steam `Running` registry hint was an unbounded veto.** Honouring it reset the absence window
  every pass, so a flag Steam left set — Steam crashed, was closed first, the game re-parented —
  pinned a lease in `running` for the life of the host process. The absence timer now runs
  regardless; past `VETO_LIMIT` (30 s) with nothing of the game on the box, the session ends anyway
  and logs at WARN. Extracted as a pure `exit_confirmed(gone_for, hint_running)` with tests — the
  watch loop polls a live process table and cannot be unit-tested, which is exactly how the
  unbounded veto shipped.
- **New `launchreg.rs`: one record per `(client fingerprint, library id)`**, written at launch and
  independent of the termination policy. The old fingerprint-keyed reclaim only ran under
  `GameOnSessionEnd::Always`, so under the default `Keep` nothing was recorded — and a client retry
  re-sent `Hello::launch` verbatim, which the host obeyed unconditionally. Steam/Epic URIs hid it
  (the launcher just focuses the running copy) but a `gog:`/`custom:` target genuinely started a
  second instance over the same save files. The same retry also minted a fresh `launch_stamp`, so
  procscan refused to adopt a game older than 2 s and **a reconnected session lost game-exit
  detection for the rest of its life.** Identity now flows backwards from the watcher, which
  publishes the concrete `ProcRef`s it adopted; liveness is `Scanner::alive` over that recorded set,
  re-verified by `(pid, start)`. Tradeoffs: a `custom:` command with no detection hints stays
  `Unknown` forever (trading exit detection for not double-spawning), and `IN_FLIGHT_WINDOW` is a
  fixed 90 s, deliberately not `disconnect_grace_seconds`.
- **A launcher entry is `LeaseKind::Untracked` unconditionally**, checked ahead of
  `nested`/`child`/`spec`. Its lifetime previously depended on invisible state: launcher not running
  → live child → `Child` lease → quitting the launcher ended the session; launcher already running →
  command forwards and exits inside `SHIM_WINDOW` → `Untracked` → session persists. Steam Big Picture
  is a *mode*, not a process (and on a Deck it is always running); Heroic is single-instance
  Electron. The real trap was the GameStream path, whose `GsApp` intermediate silently dropped the
  field.

### Library and plugins

- **Store claims keep identity across the scanner-to-plugin handover.** `library.json` gains a v2
  `{entries, claims}` shape that reads the old bare array unchanged and rewrites on first mutation.
  `PUT /library/provider/{p}?store=<s>` claims a store; entries then surface as
  `<store>:<external_id>` rather than `custom:<id>`, so entry ids, GameStream app ids, client art
  caches and Moonlight pins all survive. One provider per store (409 otherwise); while a claim is
  held the matching built-in scanner is skipped, so the two never double-list.
- `GET/PUT /library/scanners` is now a **sources** endpoint over the same disabled-set file.
- New entry fields: `role: game|launcher`; launch kinds `steam_ui` (`bigpicture|desktop`),
  `launcher_ui` (platform-gated, 400 on invalid) and `xbox`.
- **Plugin kit 0.3.0** adds a `./library` subpath: `defineLibraryPlugin` plus ported total parsers —
  text VDF/ACF, the binary `shortcuts.vdf` walker with CRC-32 appid derivation, read-only immutable
  SQLite, a registry wrapper that refuses HKCU, path-confinement joins. `GET/PUT /__config` returns
  `{schema, value}` and persists raw, so a plugin with settings need not ship an SPA.

### Platform and packaging

- **The client's config writer** falls back to an in-place write when the atomic replace is
  unavailable, verifies it by reading the bytes back, and records the last persistence failure
  centrally so the UI can surface it. Scratch files are now per-process, closing a real collision
  between the five processes that write these stores (shell, session, console UI, CLI, Decky) — one
  could previously rename its half-written temp over another's target.
- **Host send pacing** gained a pure, unit-tested budget function: oversized frames are budgeted at
  the pacing rate with a 100 ms absolute ceiling rather than compressed into one frame interval.
  Steady-state schedules are byte-identical, the legacy behaviour stays reachable via an environment
  escape hatch, and the GameStream-compatible path is untouched.
- **Mid-session shard renegotiation is gated off for PyroWave sessions**, which parse the video
  stream in windows fixed at session start — re-sizing mid-stream would corrupt the parse. Those
  sessions get the next-session clamp only and are excluded from jumbo. The ABR decode-cap latch
  likewise does not apply to PyroWave, where adaptive bitrate is open-loop by design.
- **The Deck's Vulkan compatibility layer is built from source**, pinned to the same upstream
  revision as the host's own packaged build — bump both together. ~4 MB of app content replaces a
  94 MB external extension, and Flathub is no longer needed at install time. ⚠ `subprojects/vkroots`
  is a gamescope **submodule** and flatpak-builder clones submodules by default; declaring it again
  as an explicit source breaks the build during extraction. `glm` and `stb` are `.wrap` files, not
  submodules, and *do* need explicit sources.
- **Build-container images push to an authenticated registry endpoint**, and `:latest` is reconciled
  against the content key on every push to main — an out-of-band tag move is detected and repaired
  rather than silently inherited.
- **Windows pad drivers** publish their sequence counters with release ordering (the host was already
  loading with acquire and pairing with nothing) and serialize the output-ring publish. The
  `/dev/uhid` event ABI, previously transcribed into all five Linux gamepad backends, is consolidated
  into one module.

### Verification status

Honest about what has and has not been on hardware, because several things in this release have not:

- **Controller audio has never run on a real DualSense.** Its entire verification is unit tests and
  compile checks, and its rumble arbitration rests on an explicitly retracted assumption about
  whether the voice coils and the rumble motors are the same actuators. The evidence-based 500 ms
  idle window is correct either way, but the underlying exclusivity is unsettled. Android's arbiter
  is the evidence-based one; the desktop twin and the coil restore on Android's stop path are owed.
  Some Android OEM kernels refuse the isochronous claim outright, which degrades to ordinary rumble.
- The **plugin-UI origin split** is validated against a fake console and a fake plugin, not yet in a
  real browser.
- The **packaging default-on changes** have had no installer run or package build.
- **No launcher tile has been clicked on a real host** — the first source that would publish one does
  not exist yet.
- Desktop-audio, packet-sizing and iPad-pointer work is build-verified only.
- ⚠ **The FFmpeg-deletion milestone itself has never executed on a GPU.** It was gated on
  cross-clippy, 160 tests, a workspace check and an `ffmpeg` count of 0 in the client / 2 in the host.
  The software on-glass check, the D3D11 and VAAPI AV1 hardware legs and the field bake were all owed
  at merge; later commits closed some of that but not all. The "no FFmpeg" claim is verified by
  `cargo tree` and a notices-generator mention count, not by inspecting a shipped binary.
- ⚠ **`pf-vaadec` has never decoded a frame anywhere** — no VAAPI hardware was reachable. It is the
  *first* rung on Linux/Intel and unknown vendors; the evidence filter bars it there in favour of
  `pf-vkdecode`, but an explicit pin reaches it.
- **openh264 has never run on glass**; the H.264 software rung is unit-tested only.
- **`native-d3d11va` AV1 is deliberately `verified = false`** — one 25 s 4K60 session, no parity.
- **Split arbitration is opt-in and Linux-wired only**; the Windows arm is built and unit-tested but
  not on hardware. The 5120×1440@240 Main10 behaviour flip is explicitly unvalidated and is named as
  the first thing to re-measure.
- **Software throughput is unmeasured in general** — the CPU rung does 35–39 fps at 4K AV1 against a
  60 fps stream, which is why the backlog flush that triggered the rav1d abort happens at all.
- **The Apple mic fix is a proven root cause, not a verified session.** Its own commits call it "a
  strong inference plus one proven logic defect rather than a confirmed fix" and close "awaiting the
  reporter's on-device confirmation" — which nothing later in the range records. It also leaves a
  known gap: nothing reports whether the uplink actually opened, so the HUD still offers a Mute
  Microphone button over a session that may be sending nothing.
- **The Windows audio substrate is, by contrast, well-evidenced on hardware** — repeated "measured on
  the target box", a live bisect on a fresh endpoint, and a `micpitch` proof reading 440 Hz in →
  440 Hz out at exact peak. The one thing not evidenced is a real client speaking through the minted
  microphone end to end; the pitch proof is probe-driven.
- **The phone-gyro mirror is not recorded as hardware-verified** — remap matrices are pinned by unit
  tests in both languages, but there is no "played a game with a clip-on pad" evidence in the tree.
- **The iOS gamepad-UI pale-palette sweep on glass is still owed**, per its own commit.
- ⚠ **The CI runner scripts are hand-installed** (`/usr/local/bin/ci-docker-prune.sh`,
  `/usr/local/sbin/ci-docker-reclaim.sh`). Merging does not deploy them — both runner hosts need the
  files copied out of `scripts/ci/`, and the missing `192.168.1.58:5011` insecure-registry entry on
  one host is routed around, not fixed.