| name | libsync-external-positioning |
| description | Use when writing anything public about libsync — README or website copy, release notes, feature claims, screenshots, demo videos, blog or social posts; when handling .har captures, tokens, or /api/config output that could leave the machine; when asked about the GPL license, the nathom/streamrip fork lineage, the 2026-04-14 history reroot, or the FUNDING.yml sponsor button; when an external user wants to file an issue or contribute; or when deciding whether a capability may be claimed. |
Libsync External Positioning
This skill governs what may be claimed, shipped, and shown publicly about libsync; the licensing and fork obligations that bind the project; and the secret-handling rules that must never be broken. All facts below were verified against the repo on 2026-07-03 at v0.0.6 unless noted.
1. License and lineage
License: GPL-3.0-only. The LICENSE file at the repo root is the full GPLv3 text. The README License section states: "GPL-3.0-only, same as the upstream nathom/streamrip project."
Fork origin is publicly documented. README.md states, near the top: "Libsync started life as a fork of nathom/streamrip and was rebuilt around a web UI. The original rip CLI, the TUI, and the Deezer/SoundCloud source clients are no longer part of this project." The README Acknowledgements section credits nathom, Vitiko98, Sorrow446, DashLt, and the inspiring projects (qobuz-dl, Qo-DL Reborn, Tidal-Media-Downloader). Any public description of libsync must preserve this attribution. Never present libsync as a from-scratch project.
GPL obligations (binding on any distribution, including Docker images):
| Obligation | What it means here |
|---|
| Source availability | The repo is public on GitHub; keep it that way for any release you distribute (images at ghcr.io/arthursoares/libsync count as distribution). |
| License preservation | The LICENSE file and the README License section stay intact. Derivative code stays GPL-3.0. |
| No relicensing | Code inherited from streamrip (protocol knowledge, tagging, MQA primitives — now mostly in the SDK) cannot be relicensed to anything non-GPL-compatible. |
| Attribution | Keep the README fork notice and Acknowledgements section. |
The 2026-04-14 history reroot is presentation, not concealment. The maintainer rewrote local history so the first own commit (f5058e4, "Add browse-library feature") is the visible root, cutting off 831 upstream commits. Verified: the local branch pre-reroot-backup-20260414-170428 shares no merge-base with main, a local refs/replace/eeee774... ref hides the old parent, and the rewritten commits carry byte-identical trees (verified: commit 7c8062d on main and the backup tip e8ad7aa share tree 4431f46). The backup branch and replace ref are LOCAL ONLY — a fresh clone from GitHub sees neither. Because the fork lineage remains stated in the README, this does not weaken the attribution story; do not describe the reroot publicly as hiding anything, and do not deny the fork.
Open item — FUNDING.yml sponsors the wrong person. .github/FUNDING.yml still says github: [nathom] — the GitHub Sponsor button on the repo funds the upstream streamrip author, not this maintainer. This is an inherited leftover, not a decision. If you touch public-facing repo config, flag this; fixing it goes through a normal PR (see libsync-change-control).
Version-string trap. pyproject.toml declares name = "streamrip" and version = "3.0.0" — both inherited from upstream and meaningless. The real release identity is the git tag (v0.0.1 through v0.0.6, plus v0.0.5.1). Never quote "3.0.0" or the frontend package.json "0.0.1" as the product version in public materials.
2. Secret-handling discipline (hard rules)
These rules are absolute. Breaking any of them can expose real account credentials or third-party signing secrets.
- Never commit or share
captures/ or any .har file. A HAR file (HTTP Archive — a browser/proxy traffic capture) from this project contains real auth tokens. The local captures/ directory holds live Qobuz traffic captures. .gitignore already blocks them with the comment "HAR / Proxyman captures contain plaintext auth material — never commit them" (captures/ and *.har entries). Verified 2026-07-03: no .har file has ever been committed on any branch (git log --all --diff-filter=A -- '*.har' 'captures/*' is empty). Keep it that way — do not attach HARs to issues, gists, or PRs even redacted.
- Never paste real tokens or secrets into issues, docs, commit messages, or skill files. Refer to secrets by constant name and file path only (e.g. "
APP_SECRET in qobuz/auth.py"), never by value.
GET /api/config returns credentials in plaintext. The AppConfig response model (backend/models/schemas.py) includes qobuz_token, qobuz_app_secret, and tidal_access_token as plain strings, and the handler in backend/api/config.py (get_config) applies no masking. Therefore: never share raw API responses, curl transcripts, browser devtools screenshots, or Settings-page screenshots that could show these fields. Redact before publishing anything that touched /api/config.- The hardcoded credentials are reverse-engineered third-party secrets. The SDK submodule hardcodes
APP_ID = "304027809", a signing APP_SECRET (decoded from the official Qobuz desktop Helper bundle), and an OAuth PRIVATE_KEY in sdks/qobuz_api_client/clients/python/qobuz/auth.py, plus base64-baked Tidal client IDs (CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_ID_PKCE) in .../python/tidal/tidal/auth.py. The backend's fallback web-player app id 798273057 is in backend/main.py. These belong to Qobuz and Tidal, not to this project. In public materials (blog posts, release notes, talks): do not draw attention to them, do not quote their values, and do not publish extraction procedures beyond what the repo already contains.
- CI holds a live credential. The
e2e-tests job in .github/workflows/pytest.yml (dev-branch-push only) uses repository secrets QOBUZ_TOKEN / QOBUZ_USER_ID. Never echo these in workflow steps, and never propose workflow changes that could leak them into logs or fork-triggered runs.
3. Positioning claims — what libsync is, publicly
The README already carries the correct framing; reuse its language rather than inventing new claims:
- Libsync is "a self-hosted web UI for managing and downloading your Qobuz and Tidal music libraries."
- "A premium Qobuz or Tidal subscription is required for downloads. This project doesn't bypass DRM or account restrictions — it uses your own credentials against the streaming services' own APIs."
- The README Disclaimer: "This software is for personal use with your own legitimately-purchased streaming subscriptions."
Rules derived from that framing:
| Do say | Do not say |
|---|
| "Manages your own streaming library with your own paid credentials" | Anything with piracy framing ("rip anything", "free music", "bypass") |
| "Tidal HiRes Lossless via the PKCE flow, given a HiFi-tier subscription and ffmpeg installed" | "HiRes support" unqualified |
| "Docker image at ghcr.io/arthursoares/libsync" | "Multi-arch / runs on ARM" — main's docker-publish job has no platforms: line, so images are single-arch (linux/amd64); the multi-arch fix is stranded on origin/dev (PR #10), unreleased (as of 2026-07-03, v0.0.6) |
The HiRes claim needs all three qualifiers. Per CHANGELOG v0.0.5 (verified): (a) the PKCE OAuth flow — the legacy device-code client is entitlement-capped at 320 kbps AAC regardless of subscription; (b) ffmpeg on PATH — without it, DASH-delivered lossless lands as MP4-with-FLAC in a .flac-named file; (c) subscription entitlement — "Tidal subscription tier ≠ OAuth client tier. Two separate caps." A public claim of HiRes support must carry all three.
4. What must be proven before claiming
A feature is claimable in public materials when it has: tests covering it, a CHANGELOG.md entry, and manual verification recorded (inferred — confirm with maintainer; the repo documents no formal claimability rule, and CHANGELOG entries do not currently record verification evidence).
Regardless of that standard, the documented known gaps stay listed and must not be contradicted by public claims (source: docs/WEB_UI.md "Known gaps" section, still accurate as of 2026-07-03):
- Qobuz token refresh is manual — no refresh endpoint exists; credentials are re-captured via the OAuth flow.
- Tidal playlists are not supported — the Playlists page shows a placeholder for Tidal.
- No browser E2E harness — frontend build/check and unit tests exist, but no Playwright/Cypress.
Planned or unproven work (the v1.0 internal rename, multi-arch images, anything on origin/dev) is labeled "planned" or "unreleased" in public materials, never presented as shipped.
5. Ecosystem awareness
- Upstream streamrip is alive.
nathom/streamrip is public, not archived, last pushed 2026-06-18 (verified via gh repo view on 2026-07-03). Do not describe it as dead or abandoned.
- The SDK repo is the right home for SDK-level issues.
arthursoares/qobuz_tidal_api_client is public with issues ENABLED (verified 2026-07-03). Auth-flow, signing, DASH, and downloader bugs belong there; consumed via the sdks/qobuz_api_client submodule (path keeps the old name deliberately).
- libsync has NO issue channel — open item. GitHub issues are DISABLED on
arthursoares/libsync (verified: gh repo view --json hasIssuesEnabled returns false, and gh issue list reports "has disabled issues"). The tracked .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ files on main are stale upstream leftovers: bug_report.yml asks for the removed rip CLI command, both templates say "streamrip", and config.yml sets blank_issues_enabled: false. Worse, the README Contributing section says "open an issue first" — currently impossible. Do not tell external users to file libsync issues; PRs are the only working channel today.
- CONTRIBUTING.md and SECURITY.md exist only on the abandoned
origin/dev branch (PR #8), absent from main (verified: ls CONTRIBUTING.md SECURITY.md fails on main). Do not link to them as if published.
6. Reproducibility standard for anything published
Any published benchmark, demo, screenshot, or bug report referencing behavior must pin all three of:
- Exact release tag — e.g.
v0.0.6. Use 3-part semver tags only: the tag-push trigger in .github/workflows/pytest.yml publishes versioned GHCR images via semver patterns, and a 4-part tag like v0.0.5.1 produced no versioned image tag.
- Docker image digest —
docker buildx imagetools inspect ghcr.io/arthursoares/libsync:v0.0.6 (or docker inspect --format '{{index .RepoDigests 0}}' on a pulled image). The :latest tag is repointed on every tag push and is not a stable reference.
- Config used — the relevant
/api/config keys and env vars (STREAMRIP_DB_PATH, STREAMRIP_DOWNLOADS_PATH), with all token/secret fields redacted per section 2.
When NOT to use this skill
- How a change gets approved, gated, and merged (PRs + required checks
backend-tests, frontend-build, docker-publish, ruff) → libsync-change-control.
- Cutting a release, pushing tags, operating deployments → libsync-run-and-operate.
- How Qobuz/Tidal auth, signing, quality tiers, and DASH actually work technically → qobuz-tidal-domain-reference.
- Improving Qobuz auth resilience (the live campaign) → libsync-qobuz-auth-campaign.
- Config keys, defaults, and precedence → libsync-config-and-flags.
- Doc house style and which doc is authoritative → libsync-docs-and-writing.
- What counts as test evidence before a PR → libsync-validation-and-qa.
Provenance and maintenance
Re-verify each drift-prone fact before relying on it:
- License is GPL-3.0:
head -5 LICENSE
- README fork wording intact:
grep -n "started life as a fork" README.md
- README license/disclaimer wording:
grep -n -A2 "## License\|## Disclaimer" README.md
- FUNDING.yml still sponsors nathom:
cat .github/FUNDING.yml
- Issues still disabled on libsync:
gh repo view arthursoares/libsync --json hasIssuesEnabled
- SDK repo public with issues on:
gh repo view arthursoares/qobuz_tidal_api_client --json visibility,hasIssuesEnabled
- Upstream streamrip status:
gh repo view nathom/streamrip --json isArchived,pushedAt
- No .har ever committed:
git log --all --oneline --diff-filter=A -- '*.har' 'captures/*' (expect empty)
- .har/captures still gitignored:
grep -n -i "har\|captures" .gitignore
- /api/config still returns plaintext tokens:
grep -n -A 12 "class AppConfig" backend/models/schemas.py
- Hardcoded SDK credentials still present:
grep -n "APP_SECRET\|APP_ID" sdks/qobuz_api_client/clients/python/qobuz/auth.py
- Docker images still single-arch:
grep -n "platforms" .github/workflows/pytest.yml (expect no match)
- Known gaps still current:
grep -n -A 6 "## Known gaps" docs/WEB_UI.md
- CONTRIBUTING/SECURITY still dev-only:
ls CONTRIBUTING.md SECURITY.md; git ls-tree origin/dev --name-only | grep -E "CONTRIBUTING|SECURITY"
- Stale issue templates still on main:
grep -n "rip url\|blank_issues_enabled" .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/*.yml
- Release tags:
git tag -l
- pyproject version still inherited noise:
head -3 pyproject.toml
- Reroot artifacts (local clone only):
git for-each-ref | grep -E "replace|pre-reroot"
