# How ipx was built

The long-form record, newest first: what landed each day, what was wrong before, and what it cost
to find out. [CHANGELOG.md](../CHANGELOG.md) has the short version, by release; this is where the
reasoning lives. New write-ups go at the top.

See [README.md](../README.md) for what the thing is.

## 2026-09-11 — One meaning per icon, sortable columns, and one player

Ray asked for a pass over the whole UI: consistent icons, and buttons placed next to what they act
on. The pass started from screenshots of every view and dialog, taken against the browser suite's
own daemon and fixtures. Several things did not agree:

- Unsubscribe was a minus in the toolbar but an x in the feed header. There it read as "close this
  page", and x also meant Cancel in every dialog.
- Half the dialogs still had word buttons: Log, Add feed, Users, Unsubscribe, OPML, Popular's
  Subscribe, the Copy buttons and Sign out.
- The player bar and the folder arrow were font characters, and so was the row's "playing" marker.
  Those came out thin and varied from font to font.
- The OPML subscription page laid out its header differently from a feed's, and All Subscriptions
  had no buttons at all.

The rule now is one meaning per icon. Minus unsubscribes, x closes or cancels, plus adds, subscribes
or imports, and a dialog's confirm button carries the icon of what it does. The words go in the
tooltip. The toolbar is grouped by what it acts on: add, unsubscribe and scan act on feeds; play,
read and keep act on the selected item. Its read and keep buttons now show that item's state, as
the item's own buttons already did. A browser test opens all eight dialogs and fails on any button
without an icon and a tooltip. It also checks that the toolbar and the page use the same icon for
the same action.

The pass turned up three bugs:

- **Escape ignored inside a dialog's text box.** The keydown handler returned early for any key
  typed in a text box, and Escape sat below that check. So Add feed, which opens with the cursor in
  its URL box, could not be closed with Escape. It showed up because the screenshot run stalled:
  the dialog stayed open, and every later click landed on its overlay until the run timed out.
- **A white password box in the dark theme.** The input rule listed text, search and number
  fields, but not password ones.
- **A stray "• •" under an item with no date.** Each detail carried its own trailing dot, whether
  or not the next one was there.

All Subscriptions gained Mark everything read, as `POST /api/read-all`. It marks the feeds from the
person's subscriptions, which is the same set the view's query is scoped by. It asks first, since
one click covers every feed.

**Sorting** happens on the server. A list arrives fifty at a time, so sorting in the page would
only have reordered what was loaded. The column name picks one of a fixed set of SQL expressions
(`order_sql`), so nothing the browser sends reaches the query, and an unknown name means newest
first. Ties also fall back to newest first, so "Load more" does not skip or repeat items at a page
boundary. A database test runs every column both ways. Size came out of the File column into its
own, and small files show KB, since whole megabytes made every article image "0 MB".

**The double play.** Ray found that pressing play in the Files pane played the file twice at once.
The pane drew its own `<audio controls>`, and its `onplay` handler also started the player bar on
the same file. That meant two audio elements from one click. The pane now has a play button that
hands that exact file to the player bar, the only player. `play()` now takes the file. Its check
for resuming compares the file as well as the item, so another of an item's files starts from its
beginning instead of carrying on with the first. A test plays from the pane and checks the page
has one `<audio>` element.

---

## 2026-09-11 — The original's layout

Ray pointed at a screenshot of the Mac app (techpp.com, 2012) and asked for its panes, its
toolbar, and a Directory that lives in the feed list rather than behind a button. What it had, and
what ipx now does:

- A toolbar across the window: subscribe and unsubscribe, play, flag, refresh, and a search box
  scoped to the feed on show. ipx's has the same groups, acting on the selected feed and item, with
  Settings and Log at the right end, for admins only.
- A source list opening with Directory, Playlist Builder and All Subscriptions above the feeds.
  ipx has Directory, Popular and All Subscriptions there, opening in the main pane. Playlist
  Builder is left out, since nothing here builds playlists.
- The entries as a table, with a Files pane beside it and the entry below. The columns are unread,
  kept, the item, its feed, its file and when. Sorting by column is not done yet.
- A status bar with the totals for what is on show.

All Subscriptions needed one new endpoint, `GET /api/entries`. It is the per-feed query with
`feed_id = ?` swapped for the person's subscriptions. The enclosure lookup that follows it used to
filter by feed as well; a page can now span feeds, so each file is matched to its row by feed and
guid instead.

A phone has no room for a pane beside the table, so there the files follow the item's text in the
full-screen reader, and the table drops to title and date.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Popular on this server

The old iPodderX had a directory of podcasts and a top-feeds list. The open-sourced engine shows how
the list was fed. After every successful download, `iPXClass.py:1249` called `doPing`, which sent
the enclosure URL and the feed URL, unencoded and over plain HTTP, to
`directory.iPodderX.com/feedData/survey/files`. It was on by default, and only the Mac app's
preferences could switch it off (`anonFeedback`). The directory itself lived on that server and in
the Cocoa app, and both are gone.

ipx keeps the idea and drops the ping. Add feed lists what other accounts on this server subscribe
to, ranked by subscriber count. The old ping would have sent a Patreon feed's `auth=` key along
with everything else, so this is built around not doing that:

- A row carries an id, a title, artwork and a count. No URL reaches the page, so no key can.
- Subscribing goes by id through `POST /api/popular/{id}`, which checks the id against the same
  list. Guessing a private feed's id gets a 400.
- Anything that looks private is never listed: a login configured for the feed, credentials in
  the URL, or a query key containing `auth`, `token`, `key`, `secret`, `pass`, `sig`, `session`,
  `user` or `uid`. It is a heuristic, and a token hidden in the URL's path gets through. A per-feed
  `unlisted` flag is the upgrade if that happens.

  It happened the same day. The first screenshot of the new Directory listed "Glass Cannon Live!
  Ascension (for Ray Slakinski)", a Supercast feed at `feeds.supercast.com/feeds/<key>`. Treating
  any long path segment as a key would have hidden public feeds too: acast's show ids look the
  same. So paid-feed services are named instead (Patreon, Supercast, Supporting Cast, Glow,
  Memberful), and any feed from one of them is private whatever its URL looks like. The per-feed
  flag is still the upgrade for a service not on that list.
- Feeds from an OPML are left out. Everyone subscribed to an OPML counts every feed inside it, so
  they would bury everything anyone chose on purpose.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Import an OPML file by uploading it

The import screen now has a file picker as well as the paste box. The page reads the file and
checks it looks like OPML before sending anything. If it doesn't, the page says so and clears the
picker, and it also clears the picker after an import. The file travels as text and is never
written to disk on the server, so there is nothing to clean up there.

The server now parses the OPML before touching anything, and returns `400` "that is not an OPML
file" instead of a `500`. `subscribe_opml` takes a parsed document, so `ipx import` also refuses a
non-OPML file by name before changing anything.

---

## 2026-09-11 — OPML import and export are per person

Importing an OPML now subscribes you to every feed in it. Feeds already in the catalogue cost
nothing, and unknown ones are added under the OPML's title. Before this, import only added URLs
missing from `config.toml` and subscribed nobody. So importing an export from another account did
nothing at all, and a genuinely new feed had no subscriber and was never scanned. The page said
"Imported 0 feed(s)". `ipx import` had the same gap; it now subscribes the first admin. Both go
through `subscribe_opml`.

Export now lists only your own subscriptions. It used to write out the whole catalogue to anyone
signed in, including other people's feeds and any private URLs in them.

Tests now cover every way in and out:
- Settings' Export OPML download and paste-to-import screen.
- A round trip that imports the admin's actual export into a second account and checks both
  exports match. That round trip is exactly what failed.
- `ipx import` and `ipx export`, run in their own scratch config and database.

---

## 2026-09-11 — The log is admin-only

`GET /api/logs` now returns `403` to anyone who is not an admin, and the page hides the Log button
from them. Before this, every signed-in person could read the whole log. That includes every
account's name, every feed anyone subscribes to, and every failed sign-in. `/api/events` stays open
to everyone, because it carries the scan progress each person's page shows.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Managing users from the web

Settings has a **Manage users…** screen for an admin. From it you can add someone, with a password
or with none for someone the proxy signs in, tick or untick Admin, and remove an account. It is
backed by `GET/POST /api/users` and `PATCH/DELETE /api/users/{id}`, which return `403` for anyone
who is not an admin. The only admin cannot be demoted or removed, because nobody would then be
able to manage accounts except from the CLI on the box. Before this, accounts could only be managed
with `ipx user`.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Unread feeds first inside an OPML

An OPML subscription's feeds, both in the sidebar folder and on its own page, now list the ones with
unread items first. They were listed alphabetically, so with dozens of feeds the few with anything
new were scattered through the list. Within each half the order is still alphabetical. The browser
suite's fixture OPML gained a second feed, Aardvark Radio, which sorts first by name and by position,
so the new test only passes if unread wins.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Deploying is a Docker image

Production moved from a hand-started daemon in code-server to the `iPodderX` container in the Arcane
project `content`. `CLAUDE.md` now deploys by pushing to the registry at `192.168.1.130:5000` and
recreating that one service with `docker compose`. The old instructions copied a binary over a
process nobody supervised, so it did not come back after a reboot. Two known gaps are gone: the
image does support accounts, and the entrypoint drops to `99:100`, so downloads are no longer
owned by root. The README's Docker section said `docker compose up -d` builds the image and named the
service `ipx`; the compose file pulls from the registry and the service is `ipodderx`.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Documentation

`PROGRESS.md` became this changelog; the finished step lists moved to an appendix. The README is now
an overview that points at `docs/`: [configuration](configuration.md) (every key, path and
environment variable), [cli](cli.md), [users](users.md) (what several people share),
[sso](sso.md) (refreshed for accounts and the admin-only settings), and
[architecture](architecture.md) (modules, the scan, the schema, the socket protocol, the HTTP
API). `CLAUDE.md` collects what someone working on the code needs to know and has already been
learned the hard way here -- `pkill -x` not `-f`, the page being compiled in, the dead columns on
`entries`, the Playwright worker that deleted its own database.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Pruning respects a star from anyone

Same defect as the reaper, one function along: `prune_entries` guarded on `entries.flagged`, which
nothing has written since read state moved to `entry_state`. Starring a text item with no file would
not have saved it from the age sweep. It follows the reaper's rule now, and takes orphaned read
state with whatever it deletes.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Step D: one file, and everyone who wants it

The last of it, which is all about telling the truth before acting:

* **Delete says whose file it is.** A feed with other subscribers labels the button *Delete for
  everyone*, and the confirmation names how many people share it. The server then has the last
  word: if anyone else has starred the item or not played it yet, `DELETE /api/enclosures/{id}`
  returns **409** with the reason in plain words, and only `?force=true` goes through. So the
  rule is enforced where it matters rather than in the page that happens to be asking.
* **A feed's header says it is shared** -- "shared with 1 other person" -- which is the answer to
  "why is there a file here I never asked for": someone else's subscription fetched it, and one
  copy serves you both.
* Retention already respects the same rule from the entry before this one: starred by anyone keeps
  it, read by everyone releases it.

`others_wanting` is tested with three subscribers disagreeing, and a browser test walks the whole
delete flow: the label, both prompts, declining the second, and the file still being there.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Retention caught up with per-user state

Moving read and starred into `entry_state` left `reap_candidates` reading `entries.read` and
`entries.flagged`, which nothing writes any more: **starring stopped protecting a file**, and the
"delete the ones already read first" ordering was dead. Harmless while the quota and age limits are
0 -- the reaper deletes nothing at all then -- but it would have bitten the moment one was set.

One file serves every subscriber, so both tests are now about all of them: **anyone** starring it
keeps it, and it only counts as read once **everyone** subscribed has read it. A file whose feed
nobody subscribes to has nobody left to keep it, so it sorts with the read ones. Tested with two
subscribers disagreeing.

---

## 2026-09-11 — Steps B and C: what is yours, what is everyone's

Read, starred and playback position moved out of `entries` into `entry_state (user_id, feed_id,
guid, ...)`; subscriptions became rows in `subscriptions (user_id, feed_id, ...)` carrying **your**
keywords, auto-download, explicit and per-scan limit. The feed list, unread counts, filters and
mark-all-read are all per person now. On first start the existing library is adopted by the admin:
2438 read/starred items and all 86 feeds, so nothing was lost.

The split follows from the file being shared:

* **Yours**: read state, starred, position, keywords, auto-download, explicit, per-scan limit,
  and which feeds you see at all.
* **Everyone's**: the feed URL, its download folder, and when it is scanned -- there is one copy of
  a file however many people subscribe, so those describe the file, not a preference. Admin-only,
  refused with a 403 for anyone else rather than merely hidden.

Scanning merges the subscribers' wants, because one fetch and one file serve them all: an item is
downloaded if **anyone** wants it (any one person's keyword set matching is enough, and one person
taking everything removes the filter), auto-download is on if anyone has it on, and the per-scan cap
is the largest anyone asked for. `merge_policy` is a pure function with a test covering each of
those. Subscribing to a feed someone already has costs no second fetch and no second copy on disk;
unsubscribing takes it off your list alone, and only when the last subscriber leaves does the feed
stop being scanned.

**A test-harness bug worth naming**: Playwright imports the config in every worker, so the fixture's
`prepare()` ran again mid-run and deleted the data directory out from under the daemon. The daemon
kept serving from the unlinked inode while the CLI and any query opened a fresh empty database at
the same path -- which looked exactly like sign-in being broken. Only the launching process wipes
now (a worker has `TEST_WORKER_INDEX`).

---

## 2026-09-10 — Scanning is the operator's decision

The per-feed **Check schedule** picker is gone from feed settings, and the global Settings page is
hidden from anyone who is not an admin. Both are enforced in the handlers rather than merely hidden:
`PATCH /api/settings` and a `schedule` in `PATCH /api/feeds/{id}` return 403 for an ordinary user.
Polling costs bandwidth, is what a publisher notices, and one impatient setting affects everyone
reading that feed -- it belongs in config.toml.

Folders, keywords, per-feed download limits and the feed URL stay editable by anyone signed in.

`docs/sso.md` covers putting Cloudflare Zero Trust or Authentik in front of ipx: the tunnel and
Access application, the Authentik proxy provider and its forward-auth nginx block, the three lines
of ipx config each needs, and why `trusted_proxies` must name the proxy rather than a subnet --
with the command to prove the refusal works.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Marking an item read

Two bugs in one place. `epAction`'s `redraw` closure called *itself* when it had a row to
update -- `if(el) redraw()` where it meant to swap the row -- so the Mark read button in the
text pane recursed until the stack blew. It now swaps that one row in place and refreshes the
text below only when it is the item being read.

And opening an item now marks it read, which is what clicking a thing to read it means. The row
is redrawn where it stands rather than the list reloaded, so an item does not vanish from under
the pointer on the Unread tab.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Step A: accounts and sign-in

`users` and `sessions` tables, Argon2id hashing, a session cookie, and `ipx user add|list|passwd|rm`
(passwords come in on stdin, so they miss the shell history and any `ps` listing).

Three ways in, in order of how specific the claim is:

1. **A proxy header** naming the user -- `Cf-Access-Authenticated-User-Email` for the Cloudflare
   Zero Trust in front of `ipodderx.sdf1.net`. Honoured **only** from an address in
   `trusted_proxies` (loopback by default): a header is worth exactly as much as the hop that set
   it, and the LAN port would otherwise let anyone claim to be anyone. Verified both ways -- a
   spoof from an untrusted address is refused.
2. **A session cookie** from signing in at `/login`.
3. **The shared token**, which is the admin, so the healthcheck and existing links keep working.

A database with no accounts creates **admin / ipodderx** and says so loudly in the log. The UI shows
who is signed in above the sidebar footer, with a sign-out, and a 401 sends the page to `/login`.

Nothing is per-user *yet*: everyone still sees the same feeds and read state. That is step B.

---
## 2026-09-10 — Items, not episodes

Half the library is text feeds, so the UI no longer calls everything an episode: counts, the search
box, the empty detail pane, the phone back button, the retention and per-feed settings, and the
download dialog all say **item** now. The sidebar's `20 eps` reads `20 items`.

`S1E1` badges stay -- those come from `itunes:episode`/`itunes:season` and only appear when a feed
actually publishes them -- as does the `episode` column, which is that same field.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Scanning stopped strobing

A scan of 85 feeds fires 85 `feed_done` events, and the UI refreshed on every one: a full sidebar
rebuild plus an episode reload each time, which read as flicker. Bursts now collapse into one
refresh (500ms trailing), the per-feed "N new" toasts add up into a single summary, and both lists
keep their scroll position across a rebuild instead of jumping to the top.

Measured over a full scan: 11 feed refreshes and 2 episode reloads in 45 seconds, down from one per
event.

Settings and Log moved out of the header and toolbar into a footer under the feed list -- they are
housekeeping, not daily controls. The theme toggle stays in the header.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Defaults and chrome

* **All** is the default episode filter and the first tab; Unread, Downloaded and Flagged follow.
  Opening a feed and seeing nothing because everything in it was read is a poor first impression.
* **OPML import/export moved into Settings**, under a Subscriptions heading, and the OPML button is
  gone from the sidebar -- it is a thing you do once in a while, not a daily control.
* **The feed actions are pills with icons**, and Unsubscribe is pushed to the far end in a quiet
  style: it sat next to Settings looking exactly like it, one slip away from losing a feed.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Phone layout

The UI was unusable on a phone, starting with the worst of it: the ☰ button lived inside the player
bar, which is hidden until something plays, so there was no way to reach the feed list at all. It
now sits in a small bar at the top of the main pane that is always there, and the sidebar slides
over the page with a scrim to tap away.

The rest:

* **One pane at a time.** The three-pane split becomes a list, with the item text taking the whole
  screen over it and a `← Episodes` button back. The divider is hidden.
* **No sideways scrolling.** A grid column is min-content wide by default, so one long headline
  ("davewiner/hackerNewsStars") dragged the entire page off the right edge -- `min-width:0` down the
  shell/main/wrap chain, `overflow-wrap:anywhere` on headings, and an explicit
  `minmax(0,1fr)` column for the OPML child list.
* **The player stacks**: title row on top, transport and seek bar below, and it paints above the
  reading pane so it stays reachable.
* Header artwork, buttons and log rows shrink to fit; tap targets go to 38px.

A Playwright case at 390x844 locks in the three things that actually broke: the burger is visible
with nothing playing, the page does not scroll sideways, and an item opens and closes over the list.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Marking a subscription read

An OPML subscription's page now has **Mark all read**, sitting where every other feed keeps it --
before Unsubscribe. The fix is in the handler rather than the button: `read-all` resolves the feeds
whose group is the given id (through `subscriptions()`, so a child promoted to config counts too)
and marks those, since the subscription's own row holds no entries and marking it did nothing.

---

## 2026-09-10 — A folder counts what it holds

An OPML subscription has no entries of its own, so its row always read `0 unread` no matter how much
was waiting inside it. Unread and saved are now summed from the feeds it holds -- from all of them,
not just the ones a search filter left showing, so the number doesn't move as you type. The badge
caps at `999+` (the real figure is in its tooltip); a four-digit count ate the title beside it.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Sidebar alignment

The feed list had four different left edges: a row with no children skipped the chevron entirely, so
its artwork sat a chevron-width left of a folder's; children then used a different indent *and* a
smaller icon. Nothing lined up with anything.

Every row now reserves the chevron slot whether or not it opens (an empty one is
`pointer-events:none`, so the click falls through to the row), all artwork is one size, and nesting
reads from the indent alone. Both label lines are `display:block` on a shared line-height instead of
an inline baseline, and the unread count has a `min-width` so three-digit feeds don't shove the
title. Rows came out shorter, so more feeds fit without scrolling.

---

## 2026-09-10 — An item's picture

An item's artwork now resolves in order of how deliberate the source is: `itunes:image`, then Media
RSS `media:thumbnail`, then a `media:content` that declares itself an image, and finally an image
**enclosure**. That last one matters here -- Substack puts each article's header picture in an
`<enclosure>`, which is why those blog entries had no artwork despite carrying one all along. Audio
enclosures are never mistaken for pictures.

Backfilling needed the validators cleared first: `record_entry` fills a missing image on update, but
a 304 skips parsing entirely, so the feeds would have kept their blank squares. (The self-heal added
earlier only fires when a feed has *zero* entries, which was not the case here.)

Result across the library: 325 of 3470 entries now carry their own picture, 13 feeds where every
entry has one, 69 feeds that publish no per-item image at all -- those fall back to the feed's
artwork, which is the intended behaviour rather than a gap.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Database cleanup, and the 304 trap it walked into

Cleaned up on request: removed the `CT Log Archive Torrents` folder (123 preallocated files from the
abandoned 1.6 TB tuscolo torrent, **19 GB real** on disk, no row referencing any of it, feed no
longer subscribed), the unsubscribed ct-log feed's rows, and every OPML-derived entry/enclosure that
held no file so a rescan could rebuild them with the current parser. Kept every row holding a file,
so nothing on disk was orphaned, and kept the skipped/reaped history, without which the next scan
would re-download the 149 images just deleted. Disk 22 GB -> 3.8 GB, database 22.8 MB -> 5.2 MB.

Correction worth recording: mid-download I checked that torrent folder, saw `du -sh` report 8 KB,
and told Ray it was sparse with nothing written. By the time it was abandoned it had allocated 19 GB.
The reassurance had a shelf life I did not mention.

**Then "Abort Retry Fail is empty".** The cleanup deleted entries but left each feed's
ETag/Last-Modified. The rescan sent them, servers answered 304 (120 times in the log), the daemon
skipped parsing, and 57 feeds stayed empty -- and would have until a publisher happened to change
something. Cleared the validators on the empty feeds and rescanned: entries 1524 -> 3009, feeds with
content 19 -> 64, Abort Retry Fail back to 20.

Fixed in code so it cannot recur: a 304 arriving while the feed has **zero stored entries** means the
validator has outlived the data -- a restore, a manual edit, a cleanup. The daemon now believes the
database over the validator, drops it and asks again. Proved live by deleting a feed's entries,
leaving its ETag, and rescanning: 20 entries rebuilt, self-heal logged once.

**"not a wanted media type"** was internal jargon reaching the UI, and it was stored in `last_error`
so an ordinary filter decision rendered in red as though something had failed. Reworded to "not
audio or video", 144 existing rows updated, and the UI now paints a reason red only when the state
is actually `error`.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Multiple enclosures per item, and viewing without downloading

**View without downloading.** A non-audio/video enclosure now carries a View link opening in a new
tab: the publisher's own URL when nothing is downloaded, the local copy at `/media/<id>` when it is.
Deliberately a direct link rather than a proxy — relaying arbitrary URLs through the daemon would
make it a fetch-anything service.

**Multiple enclosures.** Probed before assuming, and the result was worse than expected: the `rss`
crate models an item as having at most one enclosure (which is what RSS 2.0 says) and when a feed
carries several it silently keeps **the last**, dropping the rest. So a two-file item lost its first
file entirely.

`enclosures_by_item()` reads them straight from the XML with quick-xml, in document order,
unescaping attribute values — a feed URL's `&` arrives as `&amp;`, so skipping that would corrupt
every query string. It falls back to the parsed enclosure if the scan and the parser disagree on
item count. Atom already collected all `rel="enclosure"` links. The row now summarises the enclosure
you would act on (playable, else downloaded, else first) and says "+N more files"; the pane below
lists them all.

**A real limitation surfaced by a broken fixture.** Two browser tests failed with zero enclosures in
the detail pane. Not the new scanner — verified by running it against the fixture files directly,
which was right every time. The cause: my fixtures pointed two feeds at the *same* enclosure URL,
and `enclosures.url` is UNIQUE across the whole database, so whichever feed is scanned first claims
it and the other's entry gets nothing. That is the dedupe working as designed, but it means **two
feeds legitimately sharing a media URL will only ever show it under one of them** — worth knowing,
and worth revisiting if a network feed and a show feed ever overlap.

---

## 2026-09-10 — A file is not the same as a playable file

Reported: "Abort Retry Fail still shows downloaded and audio playback UI". The media-type filter
stopped *new* image enclosures being fetched, but those 20 JPEGs were already on disk from before
it existed — and the UI gave a play button and an `<audio>` element to anything with a `path`. An
audio element pointed at a JPEG is just a broken player.

`isPlayable()` now separates having a file from being playable: audio/* or video/*, falling back to
the file extension when a feed declares no type. Four places used the wrong test — the row's play
button, the artwork's play overlay, `encBox`, and `play()` itself, which picked the first downloaded
enclosure regardless of what it was. A downloaded non-media file now shows as
`image · downloaded · Save · Delete file`, so it is still there and still retrievable, just not
pretending to be an episode.

Covered by a new browser test with a fixture blog whose entry carries a JPEG enclosure and a feed
configured to download it: no play button on the row, no `<audio>` in the detail pane, and the Save
button still present.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Three-pane layout

Ray asked for feeds beside, items above, and the selected item's text with its enclosures below —
the layout iPodderX used. Went looking for a screenshot to work from: the archived ipodderx.com kept
only marketing panels and 130px feature icons, no full window, and the review screenshots lived on
MacMerc which the archive query did not surface. Said so rather than pretending to have reference
art; the description is a precise spec on its own.

`#split` is a grid of list / divider / detail. Selecting a row no longer expands it inline — it
highlights and fills the pane below with the title, metadata, read/keep buttons, the sanitized notes
and one block per enclosure (a player when the file is here, otherwise what it is and a Download
button). The divider drags, and the split is remembered in localStorage. The OPML group page keeps
the old scrolling layout via a `plain` class.

**Process note, because it cost a dozen calls.** Four anchor-patches in a row failed on text I had
guessed rather than read: `return el` not `return div`, `open:new Set()` mid-line rather than
starting one. Each assert aborted before writing, so the file kept reverting to a half-applied
state, and one earlier patch did land while broken and left a syntax error. What worked was
reverting to the committed copy and then reading each block verbatim before touching it, with regex
for the whitespace-sensitive parts.

The suite paid for itself again: the new pane test failed on `#detail audio` because
`max_new_per_check = 1` plus newest-first means the daemon fetches *Second* Episode, so First has no
player. My assumption, not a bug — the same mistake as the earlier `S1E1` one. The test now finds
the downloaded row by its chip instead of assuming which episode it is. 9 browser tests pass.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Image enclosures were being treated as episodes

Reported as "Abort Retry Fail shows downloads but there are none". It had 20 enclosures, all
`image/jpeg`: Substack puts each article's header image in the RSS `<enclosure>` tag, so ipx
downloaded 20 JPEGs and counted them as episodes. Across the OPML subscription: 149 images, 74 MB,
11 feeds.

`[general] media_types` defaults to `["audio", "video"]`, with a per-feed override. An enclosure
whose top-level type is not wanted is recorded and shown but not auto-downloaded.

Clarified mid-change: those enclosures should still be *visible*, just not fetched automatically.
So nothing is hidden — the row names what it is ("image", "pdf", "torrent") instead of a bare
"skipped", and the download button still works if you want that file.

Two judgement calls in `wanted_media`: an **unknown or absent** type is allowed, because the real
type is only known after downloading and refusing everything untyped would drop feeds that simply
omit the attribute; and a **torrent** is allowed, being a container rather than media, judged once
unpacked.

The enclosure-less case Ray also described was already correct — every download affordance in the
row is gated on the enclosure existing. Checked before changing anything.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Daemon I/O log tab, and Playwright

**Log tabs.** All / Daemon I/O / Scans / HTTP. "Daemon I/O" is the control protocol itself: every
command arriving (`-> {"cmd":...}`) and every event leaving (`<- {"ev":...}`), logged under
`ipx::io` at the one point every command funnels through, so it catches socket clients, the CLI
proxying and the web UI alike. Rendered in that tab as in/out rather than level+target.

The two logging destinations now have **separate filters**: stderr follows `IPX_LOG` (default
`ipx=info`), the in-app buffer follows `IPX_UI_LOG` (default `ipx=debug`) and holds 5000 lines. The
UI can therefore show protocol traffic and routine skips that would be noise on a terminal.

**Playwright.** `npm install` plus `npx playwright install --with-deps chromium`, added to
`/src/install.sh`. `playwright.config.js` starts a fixture feed server and a daemon on a scratch
config, and eight tests drive a real browser. Each maps to a bug that actually reached Ray.

Two things the harness taught, both worth keeping:

- **Playwright starts `webServer` before `globalSetup`.** Writing the scratch config in globalSetup
  meant the daemon launched with no config, fell back to defaults, and tried to seize the live
  daemon's socket. The config is written at config-load time instead.
- Ports 8097/8771 looked free but `ss` showed 8097 held by a process outside this container (shared
  host network). Moved to 8791/8792.

**The suite found a real bug on its first green-ish run:** OPML folders rendered *expanded* by
default. The code stored the set of closed groups, so a folder never toggled — every folder in a
fresh browser — counted as open, the exact opposite of the comment above it. It stores the open ones
now. Two other failures were my tests' fault, not the code's: asserting `S1E1` on `.ep.first()` when
newest-first put a different episode there, and an unscoped `getByText` matching both the sidebar
entry and the page heading. The `SE` in that first failure was the artwork placeholder's initials,
which I nearly misread as a broken chip.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Regression: derived feeds looked "unsubscribed" to half the code

Reported as `error: enclosure 235 belongs to unsubscribed feed "abort-retry-fail"`. Moving OPML
feeds out of config.toml meant a config-only lookup no longer finds them, and `download_one` still
did exactly that — so Download on any episode from an OPML subscription failed outright.

Worse than the one bug: **my first grep for the pattern gave false confidence.** `grep -n
'cfg\.feeds\.get'` returned three hits, all legitimate, so it looked clean — but the failing call
was split across lines, `cfg` then `.feeds` then `.get`, and never matched. Re-searching with
newlines collapsed found sixteen `.feeds` accesses, several of them wrong:

- `download_one` — the reported failure.
- `Status` and the daemon's startup line counted config feeds only: 3 reported where there are 85.
- `add` deduped and slugged against config only, so adding a URL an OPML already lists would have
  duplicated it, and a new feed could collide with a derived feed's id.
- `rm` on a derived feed said "no feed with id".
- The web add endpoint had the same duplicate hole.

All now go through `subscriptions()`. Verified against the exact failure: enclosure 235 went
`pending` -> `done`.

Lesson recorded because it will recur: when a lookup moves, a single-line grep is not a survey.
Collapse newlines before searching Rust method chains.

---

## 2026-09-10 — OPML feeds out of the config, a real cap, and daemon output in the log

Three reports in quick succession, all fair.

**"Config is a mess."** It was: 611 lines, 85 feeds, 82 of them machine-generated, drowning the three
Ray actually chose. Writing derived data into a hand-edited file was the wrong call. OPML children
now live in the `feeds` table (`managed = 1`, `group_id`), are re-derived every scan, and inherit the
subscription's settings — so there is nothing to store but a URL and a parent. Editing one promotes
it to a real config entry, so `config.toml` only ever holds decisions. A one-time migration moves
existing children out: **611 lines -> 38**, 85 feeds -> 3, with all 3487 entries and 216 files intact.

**"Never download more than 3."** `max_new_per_check` defaulted to *unlimited*, so subscribing to an
OPML of 82 feeds pulled every back catalogue it could reach — 216 files, 22 GB before it was caught.
There is now `[general] max_new_per_check = 3`, used whenever a feed does not set its own, so all 83
uncapped feeds were capped without touching a line of their config. `pending()` also orders by publish
date now: a cap of 3 meant "the three recorded first", not the three newest.

**"No daemon output in the log."** Scans and downloads travel as events to the socket, not through
tracing, so the log view showed only startup and HTTP lines. `Emitter::emit` mirrors them now — and
levelling matters at this scale: at 82 feeds, one INFO line per feed per tick for "not due yet"
flushed the 2000-line buffer of anything useful in minutes, so routine skips and progress are DEBUG,
real activity is INFO, failures WARN.

A splice while refactoring cut `reject` and `fetch_one` out of main.rs, and recovering them from git
over-copied three more. Both caught by the compiler, restored, and verified byte-identical against
`git show HEAD:src/main.rs` rather than eyeballed.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Subscribing to an OPML, not just importing one

Asked whether this version could do what iPodderX did: subscribe to an OPML and get a folder of the
feeds inside it. It could not — `ipx import` was one-shot from a file and nothing ever re-read it.
The original checked for a URL ending in `.opml` and re-fetched it on every scan
(`iPXClass.py:34-40`).

Now: a feed whose body sniffs as OPML is a subscription list. Sniffing the body rather than the URL
extension also catches an OPML served from a `.rss` or extension-less URL, which the original missed.
Every scan re-reads it; listed feeds become real config entries with `group = "<opml-id>"` inheriting
the parent's settings, land in one nested folder, and are scanned in the same run rather than waiting
an interval.

Removal policy, Ray's rule: **a downloaded file is never orphaned.** Gone from the OPML with nothing
downloaded -> unsubscribed and removed. Gone but with downloads -> kept and flagged `orphaned`, with
the UI saying why. Verified end to end on a local fixture: the feed with 1 download was kept and
flagged, the one with 0 was removed, the file untouched.

`folder_for` had to change: it sanitized the whole folder string, so `sub/Show` would have collapsed
into one directory. Each path segment is sanitized separately now, with a test that `../../etc/Show`
cannot climb out of the download directory.

Also: `Db::memory()` now runs `migrate()` like a real open. It did not, so a column added only in the
migration passed the tests while being absent in production — which is exactly backwards.

Live result: Ray's `lists.opml.org` subscription expanded into 82 child feeds, all grouped, 1431
entries, no feed errors, worker still responsive mid-scan.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Log view in the app, and Docker

**Log view.** A ring buffer (2000 lines) fed by a `tracing` layer, exposed at `/api/logs` with a
sequence cursor so the UI polls for "everything after N" without duplicates. Tailing a file was the
obvious approach and the wrong one: under Docker the logs go to stdout and there is no file. An
`access_log` middleware adds a line per HTTP request, so the daemon and the web side share one
stream — which is what Ray asked for. That middleware skips `/api/logs` itself, or the panel's
2-second poll would generate a line per poll forever, a log of nothing but its own requests.

UI: sidebar **Log** button, level and text filters, follow-tail toggle, copy button, colour-coded
levels.

**Restart safety.** Detached torrents introduced a `downloading` state, and a row left in it by a
restart would sit there forever — the pending queue skips it and nothing else revisits it.
`requeue_interrupted()` resets those at startup, leaving alone any row that already has a file.

**Docker.** Multi-stage build (deps cached separately from source), `debian:bookworm-slim` runtime,
114 MB. Entrypoint writes a starter config bound to `0.0.0.0` on first run, because a container's
loopback is unreachable from outside, and drops to `PUID:PGID` via gosu. Healthcheck is
`ipx status`, which goes through the control socket to the worker and so catches a *wedged* daemon,
not just a dead one.

Built and actually run, not just written: image builds, container starts, writes its config, serves
the UI (401 without a token, 200 with), `/api/logs` answers, and the process runs as
`uid=99(ipx) gid=100(users)` with files owned `99:100` and the token file at mode 600.

Worth noting for future testing here: this session's Docker socket belongs to the Unraid host, so
`-v /tmp/...:/config` binds a path on the *host*, not one visible from inside this container. The
mount looks empty from here while being perfectly correct — verify inside the container instead.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Torrents: they work, and one was freezing the whole daemon

Asked "is torrents working?". The honest answer had been "unverified since step 7" — so it got tested
properly.

**They work.** End to end against a real swarm: Debian 13.6.0 netinst, 791,674,880 bytes, completed,
`file` confirms a bootable ISO, row marked `done`. Metadata resolution, transfer, placement and
completion all good.

**But the daemon was wedged.** Ray's CT-log feed had 47 pending torrents and nothing was progressing.
The worker was blocked: a `status` command over the control socket got no reply in 15s. Torrents ran
*inline on the single command worker*, so one torrent stopped every feed scan, every HTTP download
and every status command behind it — for up to `stall_mins` (30 default) waiting on metadata, and
worse, `Torrents::fetch` blocks on seeding for up to `seed_time_mins` (60 default) **after**
finishing. One successful torrent could have frozen podcast fetching for an hour.

Torrents are now detached: `spawn_torrent` runs the job on its own task behind a 2-permit semaphore,
the row is marked `downloading` so a rescan does not queue it twice, and the worker moves straight
on. A one-shot CLI run still runs them inline, or the process would exit mid-download. Verified: the
worker now answers `status` in 0.0s.

A diagnostic misstep worth recording: `/api/settings` returning 200 was taken as proof the worker was
alive. It is not — the web server is a separate task, so HTTP stays responsive while the queue is
completely stuck. Probing the control socket is the real test.

**Those CT-log torrents are ~557 GB each, 47 of them.** The RSS advertises `length="0"`, so nothing
warns you; the size only appears once metadata resolves. `auto_download` on that feed is set to
false as a hold, since restarting would otherwise have begun a half-terabyte transfer immediately
(the scheduler's first tick fires at startup). Flip it back in the feed's Settings when wanted.

Also noted: an aborted torrent leaves librqbit's pre-created file placeholders behind in the
destination folder (zero-length). Not cleaned up yet.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Schedule pickers, and progress painting every row

**Pickers.** "Check feeds every" is a number input plus a unit dropdown (minutes/hours/days/weeks)
in both global and per-feed Settings, replacing free text. `parse_interval` gained weeks first — it
only knew m/h/d, so the backend would have rejected the new option. The per-feed dropdown's first
entry is "Use the default — every N", which disables the number and sends `null`; that rides on the
null-clearing path fixed earlier today, and would not have worked before it. `splitEvery` picks the
largest unit that divides evenly, so 120 reads "2 hours" rather than "120 min". The API now returns
`schedule_mins` so the page does not re-implement the parser.

**Bug: one download painted every pending row's progress bar.** Reported after adding the TWiT feed.
The `progress` event carried feed/url/file but no enclosure id, so the handler had nothing to target
and set the width on all of them — the code even carried a comment admitting it applied "to whatever
is downloading now". Adding a feed therefore looked like it was downloading the entire back
catalogue.

`Event::Progress`, `DownloadDone` and `DownloadError` now carry `enclosure`, threaded through both
the HTTP and torrent paths (`db::Pending` gained its row id to make that possible), and the handler
targets `.dlbar[data-bar="<id>"]` alone. A test asserts the id is on the wire. Idle bars are
transparent and only get a track while live, so a row that is not downloading shows nothing.

`tests/page-smoke.js` also drives each modal with live-shaped data now — load-time smoke never
reaches code that only runs when a dialog opens, which is exactly where these changes landed.

Verified live: weeks round-trips (`every 2w` -> 20160 min), both pickers render, clearing an
override returns to the global default. `cargo test` 37/37.

---

## 2026-09-10 — The whole UI was dead, and server-side tests could not see it

Reported as "my feeds seem to have disappeared", then "settings and dark/light mode don't do
anything either". One cause for all three.

`$('#prefs').onclick = prefsModal` referenced a function that did not exist. An uncaught
`ReferenceError` stops the entire script, and that line sits above the theme toggle, the feed
filter, the SSE connection and the `loadFeeds()` call that fills the sidebar — so everything below
it silently never ran.

**Cause: a patch anchored on something already deleted.** The scheduling UI was inserted with
`str.replace` anchored on `function toggleSettings(){`, which belonged to the *old* basic UI that
the full rewrite had already removed. Python's replace matches nothing and says nothing, and there
was no assert — so `prefsModal`, `everyText`, `due` and `globalEvery` were never added, while the
line *calling* `prefsModal` went in fine via a different anchor that did match.

**Why it got through.** Every check was server-side: curl for status codes, JSON shape, config
contents. All passed, because the server was fine. `node --check` also passed — it parses, and a
ReferenceError is a runtime failure. The page was never executed.

`tests/page-smoke.js` now runs the real page script against a stub DOM, fails on anything thrown,
and flags handlers wired to elements that do not exist. Confirmed non-vacuous by reintroducing the
exact bug: exit 1 pointing at the offending line, clean once restored. Run it with
`node tests/page-smoke.js`.

Wiring is also defensive now — `on(sel, ev, fn)` logs and skips rather than throwing, so one dead
reference cannot blank the app again.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Scheduling, and two bugs it uncovered

**Scheduling.** The original engine had none — it only skipped feeds on `<ttl>`; the schedule lived
in the Cocoa GUI that was never open-sourced, so there was no original behaviour to match. Scope
agreed with Ray: interval only, global default plus per-feed override, no quiet hours.

`general.schedule` takes "every 30m", "every 4h", "1d", or a bare number of minutes;
`feeds.<id>.schedule` overrides it. The legacy `interval_mins` is still read so existing configs
work, and saving from the UI migrates it. A malformed value in the file warns and falls back rather
than stopping the daemon; a malformed value over the API is a 400.

Precedence, which is a judgement call: an explicit per-feed schedule wins outright, including over
the publisher's `<ttl>`. With no per-feed schedule, `<ttl>` still raises the interval when the
publisher asks to be polled less often. Visible in practice — TWiT resolves to 720 min from its own
ttl against a 60 min global.

UI: a gear opens global Settings (schedule, quota, max age); each feed's Settings gains a schedule
field; the feed header shows "every 4 hours · next in 37m".

**Bug 1: `null` never cleared anything.** For `Option<Option<T>>`, serde maps JSON `null` onto the
*outer* `None`, which the handler reads as "field absent, leave alone" — so `Some(None)` was
unreachable and every clear was a no-op returning 204. That silently affected `folder`, `schedule`
and `max_new_per_check`; unsetting any of them from the UI did nothing and looked like it worked.
Fixed with a `double_option` deserializer, and pinned by a test covering absent / null / value.

**Bug 2: the daemon ignored SIGTERM while working.** `tokio::select!` races its branches only at
selection time; once inside `run(...).await` the shutdown future was not polled at all, so a signal
queued behind a 90 MB download. Under systemd every restart would have hit `TimeoutStopSec` and been
SIGKILLed mid-transfer.

This one cost real time: `pkill` appeared to work but didn't, a stale daemon kept port 8099, and
because the restart also `rm -f`'d the socket it defeated the "already listening" guard and a second
daemon started. Every PATCH "verified" after that went to the *old* binary — so bug 1 was reported
fixed while completely untested. Lesson: confirm the process actually died and the socket guard is
doing its job, rather than trusting the restart.

The stop signal now lives in a `watch` channel raced *inside* each job. Measured: SIGTERM mid-
download exits in 1s (was: blocked until the transfer finished). An abandoned download leaves a
partial in `.ipx-incomplete`, discarded on the next attempt.

`cargo test` 37/37.

---

## 2026-09-10 — App name, and a transparent icon

Title is `iPodderX` in the browser tab and the sidebar. The heading's `text-transform: uppercase`
had to go with it, or the camel case would have rendered as `IPODDERX`.

The icon's white background is gone. A blanket `-transparent white` would have punched holes
straight through the device, whose body is also white — so the background is flood-filled inward
from all four corners at 12% fuzz, which only clears the *connected* region and stops at the dark
outline. Then trimmed and scaled to 128px.

Checked by compositing onto the real `#0e131b` rather than trusting the alpha channel: no white
plate, and no pale fringe from the JPEG artifacts along the outline. The `.logo` rule lost its
`background:#fff` plate and switched to `object-fit:contain`.

Both files are tracked: `ipodderx-icon.jpg` is the untouched archival original, `ipodderx-icon.png`
the transparent version derived from it, so the provenance chain survives. The PNG is embedded as a
data URI for the sidebar mark and the favicon.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Colour scheme derived from the icon

Palette sampled from `web/ipodderx-icon.jpg` with ImageMagick rather than eyeballed. The icon gives
three families: the silver device ramp (`#1A1A1A` `#606060` `#929292` `#ADADAD` `#D6D6D6` `#F5F5F5`),
the screen blues (`#2D5391` `#5574A9` `#7595CA` `#92B2E6` `#B4CAED`), one amber from the EQ bars
(`#F49E2C`), and a blue-grey `#95A0B1`.

Dark theme: `--bg` is the screen navy taken right down, `--fg` the device highlight, `--dim` the
blue-grey verbatim, `--accent` the screen blue, `--accent2` the amber. Light theme flips to the
device body — white panels, `#D6D6D6` edges, `#1A1A1A` text — with the deeper `#2D5391` as accent,
since the pale screen blue vanishes on white. Text sitting on an accent fill moved from a hardcoded
`#0b0e14` to a `--ink` token.

Two calls: the amber doubles as the pending state, being the only warm note in the icon and exactly
where the eye should go. And since the icon has no green or red, the downloaded/error colours are
tuned to the palette's saturation and temperature rather than invented from scratch.

**Contrast was checked, not assumed, and it failed first time.** `--faint` — which carries dates,
durations and file sizes at small size — came out at 3.92 dark and 3.11 light, both under AA. Moved
along the icon's own grey ramp to `#7a8799` and `#767676`. Every pair in both themes now clears
WCAG AA; the lowest anywhere is 4.54.

---

## 2026-09-10 — The real iPodderX icon

The sidebar mark was an invented `ix` placeholder. The original icon is not in this repo or the
legacy one: only the Python engine was open-sourced, never the Cocoa bundle whose Resources held the
`.icns` (the legacy repo's history contains nothing but .py/.so/.po/.mo/LICENSE/README).

Recovered from the Internet Archive's capture of ipodderx.com: `_graphics/iPXicon.jpg`, 173x165 --
the white iPod-style device with the antenna and EQ display. That is the largest surviving copy; the
site's 2005 `favicon.ico` is far too small to use. Saved as `web/ipodderx-icon.jpg` so the file lives
in the tree, and embedded as a base64 data URI (12.7 KB) for both the sidebar mark and the favicon,
which avoids an extra asset route.

`.logo` changed from a gradient chip to a white rounded tile, since the icon is photo-style on a
light ground.

Provenance is Ray's own: the app was Slakinski & Trometer / Thunderstone Media, and this is its
successor.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Feed URL is editable, with a copy button

The URL in a feed's Settings is now an editable field paired with Copy. Entries and download
history are keyed by feed id, not URL, so changing it keeps everything — which is the point, since
a Patreon feed URL carries an auth token that gets rotated.

Two things that would otherwise have bitten:

- **`navigator.clipboard` does not exist here.** It requires a secure context, and this is served
  over plain HTTP on a LAN address, so the button would have silently done nothing. Falls back to a
  hidden textarea plus `execCommand('copy')`, and reports Copied/Failed either way.
- **Changing the URL clears the stored ETag/Last-Modified.** Those validators belong to the old URL;
  carrying them over could yield a bogus 304 against the new one and make a working feed look empty.

`check_url` is a tested pure function: rejects empty, unparseable and non-http(s) URLs (so
`file:///etc/passwd` is refused), rejects a URL another feed already uses, and allows a feed to keep
its own URL unchanged. Validation failures and unknown feed ids now return **400**, not 500 — bad
input is the caller's mistake, and only genuine server faults are logged as errors.

Verified live: the three rejection cases return 400 with readable messages, a no-op save returns 204,
and the feed still reports 131 entries / 11 downloaded. `cargo test` 34/34.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Fixed: pressing play made an episode vanish from the list

Reported as "where did Session Zero go, and why do parts share a number?".

Two separate things, one of them a real bug.

**The bug.** `play()` marked an episode read the moment playback started. The default view is the
Unread tab, so pressing play removed the episode from the list you were looking at — indistinguishable
from it going missing. Confirmed from the data: all four read entries had `position = 0`, meaning
playback never passed the 10-second save threshold. They had been started, never listened to.

Marking read now happens when an episode is actually consumed — on `ended`, or once playback passes
90% — never on play. Two earlier PROGRESS entries described mark-on-play as a deliberate feature;
it was a design error, and this supersedes them.

Also restored the four affected rows to unread, since their read flag was purely an artifact of the
bug (`UPDATE entries SET read=0 WHERE read=1 AND position=0` — no genuinely-played episode could
match, since playing one writes a position).

**Not a bug: repeated episode numbers.** Each story part ships as two items — the main episode and a
shorter `Junk in the Trunk` companion — with distinct GUIDs, durations and files, and the publisher
gives both the same `itunes:episode`. Zero duplicated titles across all 131 entries. `Session Zero`
additionally carries a season with no episode number and drops the "Part N" naming, so it does not
match the pattern its siblings follow.

Verified: the arc shows 11/11 items under the default Unread view again.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Titles: RSS `<title>` is the only source

Confirmed against the live feed rather than assumed: 131 feed items, 131 stored, **0 mismatches** —
entry titles are byte-for-byte what the RSS `<title>` publishes, separators included. `feed.rs` never
consults `itunes:title`, and season/episode live in their own columns, rendered as chips rather than
folded into the title.

Pinned with a test: a fixture whose `itunes:title` differs from its `<title>` must still yield the
RSS title, and an item with `itunes:season` but no `itunes:episode` keeps a null episode instead of
inventing one.

That null-episode case is real in the wild — this feed's `Music from a Darkened Room | Session Zero`
carries S8 with no episode number, while Parts 1-5 get E1-E5, and it drops the "Part N" convention
its siblings use. The arc is 11 items: Session Zero plus five parts, each part being a main episode
and its shorter `Junk in the Trunk` companion.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Phase 3: full-featured UI

Rewrite of `web/index.html` (~714 lines) plus the backend it needed.

**New stored metadata**, all of which the real feed carries on all 131 episodes and none of which
was being captured: feed and per-episode artwork (`itunes:image`), duration (`itunes:duration`,
parsed from either raw seconds or a `1:34:09` clock), season/episode numbers, and a playback
`position` so episodes resume.

**Schema migration.** `Db::open` now runs `migrate()`: `PRAGMA table_info` then `ALTER TABLE ADD
COLUMN` for anything missing, since `CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS` does nothing to an existing table.
Tested on a *copy* of the live database first. Accidentally SIGPIPE'd it partway through (a `head -4`
on the output) which usefully proved it is idempotent and self-heals: the next run added the
remaining columns, 131 entries and 6 downloads intact.

**New endpoints:** entry filters (all/unread/downloaded/flagged), case-insensitive search over title
and notes, pagination totals, `POST .../position`, `read-all`, `download-latest`, and OPML
import/export over HTTP.

**UI:** persistent player bar surviving navigation (play/pause, ±15s/30s, 0.8-2.5x speed, volume,
scrubber, all remembered in localStorage), resume playback via `sendBeacon` every 10s, MediaSession
for lock-screen controls, keyboard shortcuts (space, arrows, `/`, Esc), artwork everywhere with
generated-initials fallback, filter tabs, episode search, load-more pagination, live progress bars
off SSE, real modals, toasts, light/dark toggle, and a mobile layout with a collapsing sidebar.

**Bug found and fixed in review: filtering was broken while searching worked.** `count_entries`
dropped the search clause when no term was given but still bound `?2`; rusqlite rejects a parameter
the statement never mentions -- *"Wrong number of parameters passed to query. Got 2, needed 1"*. So
`?q=...` worked and a plain Unread/Downloaded/Flagged filter 500'd. The clause is now always present
with `?2 = ''` short-circuiting it. Regression test runs all four filters with and without a search
term and asserts the page and the count agree.

**A non-bug worth recording:** artwork looked broken on the live DB (0/131) while a fresh DB filled
all 131. The parser was fine -- the live DB simply had not been rescanned yet, since backfill happens
through `record_entry`'s update path. After a forced scan: 131/131 image, duration and season.

Verified live: all four filters return sane totals (131/129/10/0), search works (`session zero` -> 2,
`trunk` -> 10), `/media/1` with a Range header returns 206, index serves 34 KB. `cargo test` 32/32.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Fixed: the UI's Download button downloaded the wrong episodes

Reported from the running instance: clicking Download on *Music from a Darkened Room | Session Zero*
showed progress, then left the episode at `pending`.

**Cause, and it was a design error in step 11, not a glitch.** `POST /api/enclosures/{id}/download`
requeued the row to `pending` and asked for an ordinary scan, justified at the time as "needed no
new machinery — the queue is the table". But a scan means *take the lowest-id pending rows, up to
`max_new_per_check`*. Against a 125-item backlog with a cap of 2, that is ids 7 and 8; the requested
row 11 was never a candidate. The progress on screen was two other episodes downloading past it.

The queue can express what is outstanding but not what was *asked for*. `Command::Download {
enclosure }` is now its own command: it fetches that one row immediately, ignoring both queue order
and the per-scan cap, still through the single worker so it cannot overlap a scan. Torrent
enclosures route to `torrent_one` the same way a scan would.

Verified live: enclosure 11 went `pending` -> `done`, 90.3 MB on disk, and nothing else was pulled
in its place. `cargo test` 30/30, with the new command's wire form pinned.

Worth remembering: **the daemon scans immediately on its first tick**, so every restart costs
`max_new_per_check` episodes on the normal path.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Phase 2: web front end (steps 9-13)

axum in the daemon process, plain HTML/JS in `web/index.html` (embedded with `include_str!`), no
WASM toolchain. One binary still.

**Config hot-reload.** `Ctx.cfg` is now `RwLock<Arc<Config>>`; `ctx.cfg()` hands out a snapshot, so
no guard is ever held across an await. The UI rewrites config.toml and calls `reload_cfg`, and a
running daemon picks the change up on its next scan. The CLI mutation commands (`add`/`rm`/`import`)
now clone a snapshot, edit, and save.

**Auth.** `[web] enabled/bind/token`; the token is minted from `/dev/urandom` on first run, written
back to config.toml, and the URL printed. `?token=` sets a year-long cookie — it has to be a cookie
because an `<audio>` element cannot send a header. Comparison is constant-time. An empty token makes
the server refuse to serve rather than serve open.

**Endpoints.** `/api/feeds` (GET/POST), `/api/feeds/{id}` (PATCH/DELETE),
`/api/feeds/{id}/entries`, `/api/entries/{feed}/{guid}/flags`, `/api/enclosures/{id}/download`,
`/api/enclosures/{id}` (DELETE), `/api/fetch`, `/api/events` (SSE off the existing broadcast bus),
`/media/{id}` (tower-http `ServeFile`, so Range works).

**`read`/`flagged` finally have a writer** — the UI sets them, and playing an episode marks it read.
Retention has ordered by these since step 5 with nothing to set them.

**Download-on-demand needed no new machinery**: requeue the row to `pending` and kick a scan, since
the queue is the table. That also un-skips an enclosure a filter rejected under older settings.

Verified against the live Glass Cannon feed, daemon on 127.0.0.1:8749:

- auth: no token 401, wrong token 401, right token 200 + cookie, API then works on the cookie alone;
  `/media/1` unauthenticated is 401.
- browsing: 131 entries page with enclosures attached.
- **XSS**: injected `<script>alert(1)</script><img src=x onerror=alert(2)>` into a stored
  description; it reaches the page as `<p>hi</p><img src="x">` — script tag and handler both gone.
- media: 200 with `accept-ranges: bytes`; `Range: bytes=1000000-1000999` returns 206 with the right
  `content-range`, so seeking works.
- config: PATCH -> 204, written to config.toml, and the running daemon reports the new values with
  no restart.
- SSE: 105 events for one download (101 progress), then `download_done`/`feed_done`/`scan_done`.
- flags: 204, unread count dropped 131 -> 130. Delete: file gone, row `reaped`/`path=NULL`.

`cargo test` 30/30.

**Caveats.** It is plain HTTP — on a LAN bind the token crosses the network in the clear, and a feed
URL may itself carry a credential (Patreon's does), which the `/api/feeds` response includes. A
reverse proxy with TLS is the answer if that matters. There is no per-user anything; the token is
all-or-nothing access.

---

## 2026-09-10 — Tested against a real feed (Patreon / Glass Cannon)

First run against a live subscriber feed: 131 items, 6.17 GB total, all `audio/mpeg`, no `<ttl>`.
Parsed clean, titled `Get in the Trunk | Anthology Series | Delta Green`, downloaded a valid MP3
(`file` confirms ID3v2.3, MPEG layer III). A second scan pulled the *next* episode, confirming
`max_new_per_check` defers rather than drops. Over the socket: 101 progress events for a 79 MB
episode -- whole-percent throttling behaving exactly as intended -- then `download_done`,
`feed_done`, `scan_done`.

**Fixed: stripped separators left doubled spaces.** The feed title separates words with `|`, a
forbidden filename character, so the folder came out `Get in the Trunk  Anthology Series  Delta
Green`. The Python had the same wart.

Forbidden characters are now split in two. Separators (`/ \\ | :`) become `-`; the rest
(`? * < > " '`) are simply dropped. A run of dashes and spaces then collapses to `" - "` when the
run contained whitespace and to a bare `-` when it did not, so:

| input | output |
|---|---|
| `Get in the Trunk \| Anthology Series \| Delta Green` | `Get in the Trunk - Anthology Series - Delta Green` |
| `Ep 12: The One` | `Ep 12 - The One` |
| `AC/DC` | `AC-DC` |
| `well-known.mp3` | `well-known.mp3` |
| `../../etc/passwd` | `etc-passwd` |

Leading dashes and dots are trimmed too -- a filename starting with `-` trips up CLI tools.

**Worth knowing, not a bug:**

- The channel-level `itunes:explicit` is `true`, so with the default `allow_explicit = false` all
  131 episodes are skipped. Because filter verdicts are recorded once at discovery, flipping the
  setting afterwards does not re-evaluate enclosures already marked `skipped` -- they would need a
  `UPDATE enclosures SET state='pending'`. Worth a `ipx retry <feed>` command if this bites.
- Patreon sends neither `etag` nor `last-modified` on a GET (a `last-modified` does appear on HEAD,
  which is what made it look briefly like a storage bug). So this feed can never 304: every poll
  re-fetches ~160 KB and re-parses 131 entries, and `interval_mins` is the only thing limiting the
  rate. Cheap, but it means conditional GET buys nothing here.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 8: OPML and polish

`ipx add <url>` fetches the feed to name it from its own title (`Accidental Tech Podcast` ->
`accidental-tech-podcast`); a feed that cannot be reached is still added, named from its URL, rather
than refused. `ipx rm` leaves downloads and history alone, so re-adding a feed does not re-pull its
back catalogue. `ipx import`/`export` walk nested OPML folder outlines and skip URLs already
subscribed. `tracing` logs to stderr, `IPX_LOG` sets the filter. `contrib/` has a systemd user unit
for the daemon, plus a timer and one-shot service for the no-daemon style (with the caveat that
without a daemon there is no socket for a UI).

Verified: `cargo test` 27/27. Round-trip — exported 3 feeds with real titles, removed one,
re-imported: exactly the missing one came back, no duplicates, config still mode 0600. Quickstart
from a genuinely empty home with no env overrides: `list` on a missing config, `add`, `fetch`
(1 downloaded, 1 explicit skipped, 1 torrent 404), `list`; every path resolved under `$HOME`.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 7: torrent.rs

`src/torrent.rs`: a librqbit `Session` started lazily on first torrent (binding ports and starting a
DHT for a config that has never seen a torrent would be rude). `.torrent` URLs and magnets both go
through `AddTorrent::from_url`. Progress is polled once a second and reported through the same
`Progress` events HTTP downloads use.

Downloads go **straight into the feed folder** rather than staging and moving. The plan said move
then seed, which cannot work — seeding serves the files it downloaded, so moving them first breaks
it. In-place also removes a copy the original had to do.

Seeding stops at `seed_ratio` or `seed_time_mins`, whichever comes first, then the torrent is
released from the session (files kept).

**Bug the smoke test caught:** the stall budget only covered the download loop, but resolving a
magnet's metadata happens inside `add_torrent`, which against a dead swarm never returns — a
torrent nobody seeds wedged the scan indefinitely. `add_torrent` is now wrapped in the same budget.

Verified: `cargo test` 27/27 (ratio incl. the divide-by-zero case, stall_mins = 0 not meaning
"abort instantly"). Routing: with `enabled = false` a torrent enclosure is marked
`skipped/torrents disabled` and never attempted. Session startup works here. Stall abort measured
end to end: with `stall_mins = 1`, a dead magnet failed at 20:58:23 -> 20:59:24, exactly 61s, and
the row recorded `error / no metadata after 1 minutes, gave up`.

**Not verified: an actual successful swarm download.** This sandbox has no reachable peers, so
smoke 5's happy path — payload lands, seeding stops at the ratio — has not been run. The code paths
either side of it are tested; the swarm itself needs a real network. Worth running once against a
live torrent feed before trusting it.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 6: ipc.rs + daemon

`src/ipc.rs`: `Event` and `Command` as serde-tagged enums (`{"ev":...}` / `{"cmd":...}`), one JSON
object per line over a Unix socket. `Emitter` is the single output path — it broadcasts to socket
clients, prints the human rendering to a terminal, or both, so the scan code no longer knows how it
is being watched. That replaces `printMSG` and its `;;1;;1;;100.00;;42.31` sentinels.

`main.rs` restructured around a `Ctx` (config, db, client, emitter). `ipx daemon` binds the socket,
serves clients, and runs a 60s ticker that defers to each feed's TTL. Commands from every client
funnel through one mpsc queue into a single worker, which is what stops two scans overlapping.
Any CLI subcommand with a wire form probes the socket first and proxies to a running daemon;
`--local` forces the work to happen in-process. SIGINT/SIGTERM remove the socket on the way out.

**Bug the smoke test caught:** `fetch` runs a retention sweep first, and that sweep was emitting the
terminal `ReapDone`. A UI waiting for its fetch to finish would have stopped reading before the scan
started. Only a standalone `ipx reap` emits it now.

Verified: `cargo test` 24/24. Smoke 3 in full — daemon starts and binds; a raw socket client sending
`{"cmd":"fetch","force":true}` gets `feed_start` → 14 throttled `progress` events → `download_done`
→ `feed_done` → `scan_done`; `{"cmd":"status"}` answers `{"ev":"status","feeds":1,...}`. With the
daemon up, `ipx fetch` from the CLI logged `command from a client cmd=Fetch { .. }` in the daemon
and rendered the streamed events, so it proxied rather than downloading in parallel. Socket removed
on SIGTERM; with no daemon the same command runs locally.

Deferred: `{"cmd":"cancel","enclosure":N}` from the plan's protocol is **not implemented** —
downloads run sequentially in one worker, so there is nothing to cancel concurrently yet. It wants
a per-download cancellation token, which is worth doing when downloads go parallel. Say if you want
it sooner.

Note: the event stream is a broadcast, so a CLI client seeing a busy daemon also sees that other
work. Fine for a terminal; a UI wanting strict request/response would want per-request ids.

Also note: the daemon reads config once at startup — changing `config.toml` needs a restart.

Next: step 7 — `torrent.rs`.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 5: retention.rs

`src/retention.rs`: reconcile pass (rows claiming a file that is gone become `reaped`, fixing the
step-4 wart), age sweep, quota sweep keeping the original's 50 MB headroom pad, and entry pruning.
`ipx reap [--dry-run]`; a sweep also runs before every `fetch`, as the Python did per download.
`pick()` and `aged()` are pure so the ordering rules are testable without touching a disk.

**Judgement call worth Ray's eye.** The Python meant to reap only `read = 1 AND flagged = 0` but
never managed it — a missing `plistlib` import and an `EntreiesData` typo made that filter throw on
every candidate, so with a `.ipxd` present nothing was ever deleted. Requiring `read = 1` here would
be equally dead, because nothing marks episodes read until a UI exists. So: **`flagged` is the
keep-forever marker, and `read` only decides what goes first** (`ORDER BY read DESC, downloaded_at
ASC`). Quota therefore actually reclaims space headless. Say the word if you would rather unread
episodes were never touched.

Second call: `max_age_days` deletes *files* older than the cutoff, not just fileless entries as the
plan's wording had it — "keep 30 days of episodes" is what the setting reads like on a NAS.

Verified: `cargo test` 21/21, including the two tests encoding the exact bug the Python had —
flagged files are never offered, and read sort ahead of unread. Smoke 6 with three 30 MB episodes
against a 0.1 GB quota (52.4 MB ceiling after the pad): dry run listed ep1+ep2 and deleted nothing
(3 files still on disk), the real run deleted exactly those two oldest, left ep3, flipped both rows
to `reaped` with `path = NULL`. A full re-parse with the conditional-GET headers cleared then
re-downloaded nothing.

Next: step 6 — `ipc.rs` + daemon.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 4: download.rs

`src/download.rs`: streaming download to `<download_dir>/.ipx-incomplete/` (same filesystem as the
destination, so filing it is a rename, not the original's copy-then-unlink), content sniffing,
then `place()`. Filename comes from the URL's last path segment, percent-decoded, unless
`Content-Disposition` names one (RFC 5987 `filename*=` preferred). The sanitizer keeps UTF-8 —
`latin1_to_ascii` existed because 2004 filesystems demanded ASCII — strips the same characters
`stringCleaning()` did plus control chars, and adds a real 255-byte cap the Python never had,
preserving the extension across truncation.

Sniffing replaces `detectFileType()`, which called a `typeFile` module that was already missing in
2008 and so always answered `'data'`. Two rules survive: an HTML body is a failed download (login
wall/error page), and a torrent body is a torrent whatever the MIME claimed.

Filters run once at discovery and are recorded in `enclosures.state`; the download queue is then
just "everything still `pending`", so an enclosure held back by `max_new_per_check` is picked up by
the next scan instead of being lost. Keywords are OR'd across keywords and AND'd within one — the
original's nested loop let a later keyword silently undo an earlier miss.

Verified: `cargo test` 16/16. Smoke against a local server, five enclosures, each filter path hit:
`ep1.mp3 -> done`, `ep2.mp3 -> skipped (explicit)`, `ep2.mp3?v=3 -> skipped (no keyword match)`,
`paywall.html -> error (HTML page, not media)`, `ep5.torrent -> torrent (deferred to step 7)`.
Smoke 2 and 4 pass, and because a plain rerun 304s before parsing, dedupe was proved separately by
clearing the stored etag/last-modified and re-parsing all five entries: 0 downloaded, hand-deleted
file not refetched, `.ipx-incomplete` left empty.

Known wart: `ipx list` counts `path IS NOT NULL`, so a hand-deleted file still reads as downloaded.
Reconciling rows against the filesystem belongs in step 5.
Next: step 5 — `retention.rs`.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 3: feed.rs

`src/feed.rs`: conditional GET (`If-None-Match` + `If-Modified-Since`, optional basic auth) and a
RSS-first / Atom-fallback parser normalising both into `ParsedFeed`/`Entry`/`Enclosure`. Feed-level
`itunes:explicit` overrides the entry level, as the original did. `<ttl>` is captured. RSS
`content:encoded` wins over `description`. Atom enclosures come only from `rel="enclosure"` links.

GUID: the original hashed the title or description when no guid existed; here the chain is
guid → permalink → enclosure URL → title, all stable identifiers, so no hashing and no MD5
dependency. An entry with none of them has nothing to download and is dropped.

`db.rs` gained `http_state`, `record_feed`, `touch_feed`, `set_feed_error`, `record_entry`,
`record_enclosure`. A changed title/description flips `read` back to 0 — what the original's
textDiff was ultimately for, minus the `<ins>`/`<del>` markup, which belongs in the UI.

`main.rs` gained `ipx fetch [FEED] [--force]`. A failing feed records its error and the scan
continues.

Verified: `cargo test` 10/10. Gate met against a local `python3 -m http.server` serving the
fixtures — first run inserted 4 entries + 4 enclosures across an RSS and an Atom feed; second run
showed both skip paths, `atomcast: not modified` (304) and `testcast: not due for 45m` (the feed's
own ttl=45 beating `interval_mins = 0`).

Deferred: nothing downloads yet — enclosure rows land in state `pending`. That is step 4.
Next: step 4 — `download.rs`.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 2: config.rs + db.rs

`src/config.rs`: serde structs for `[general]`, `[torrent]` and `[feeds.<id>]` with defaults, `~`
expansion, `IPX_CONFIG` / `IPX_DATA_DIR` overrides, `save()` at mode 0600, `Feed::password()`
(`password_env` beats a literal `password`), `Torrent::ports()` parsing `"6881-6889"`. A missing
config file loads as an empty one so a fresh install works. Retention defaults are 0/0
(unlimited, keep forever) — nothing gets deleted until Ray asks for it.

`src/db.rs`: schema exactly as planned, WAL + `busy_timeout`, `Db::open()` idempotent, connection
behind a `Mutex`, `feed_summary()` for `list`, `now()` helper. `enclosures.url` is UNIQUE — the
dedupe key that replaces `history.dat`.

`src/main.rs`: clap skeleton with `ipx list`. Only the subcommands that work exist; the rest arrive
with their steps.

Verified: `cargo test` 5/5 green (config defaults, port-range fallback incl. reversed range,
password_env precedence, schema idempotency, enclosure-url uniqueness). Gate met — `ipx --config
<scratch> list` printed both feeds and created `state.db` once across two runs.

Deferred: nothing. Two dead-code warnings (`Config::save`, `Feed::password`) are expected; steps 3
and 8 consume them.
Next: step 3 — `feed.rs`.

Also added `chrono` 0.4 (std, clock) for RFC-2822 pubDate parsing in step 3.

---

## 2026-09-09 — Step 1: repo skeleton

Repo created at `/src/ipodderx-rs`, default branch `main`, `cargo init --name ipx` (edition 2024,
rustc 1.95.0). LICENSE (MIT, carrying the 2010 copyright), README with the lineage note, and this
file. Hello-world `main.rs` builds.

Dependency versions pinned today — the later steps are written against these APIs:

| crate | version | notes |
|---|---|---|
| tokio | 1.53.1 | rt-multi-thread, macros, fs, io-util, net, sync, time, signal |
| reqwest | 0.13.5 | `default-features = false`; features **`rustls`** (not `rustls-tls` — renamed in 0.13), http2, gzip, stream, json, charset, **`system-proxy`** (env-var proxy pickup is opt-in in 0.13) |
| rss | 2.1.1 | default features; the `with-syndication` feature name in my notes does not exist — Atom is handled by the separate crate |
| atom_syndication | 0.12.10 | |
| rusqlite | 0.40.2 | `bundled` |
| librqbit | 9.0.1 | `default-features = false`; features `rust-tls`, `http-api-client`. The default `default-tls` feature pulls reqwest/native-tls **and** an OpenSSL sha1 backend (`crypto-hash`), which fails to build without pkg-config/OpenSSL headers. API not yet exercised — step 7 |
| serde 1.0.229 / serde_json 1.0.151 / toml 1.1.5 | | |
| clap | 4.6.6 | derive |
| infer 0.22.0 / dirs 7.0.0 / anyhow 1.0.104 / opml 1.1.6 | | |
| tracing 0.1.44 / tracing-subscriber 0.3.23 | | env-filter |

Deferred: nothing.

Gotcha worth keeping: three feature names in the plan were wrong against current crate versions —
`reqwest/rustls-tls` is now `rustls`, env-var proxy support moved behind `system-proxy`, and
`rss/with-syndication` does not exist. `librqbit`'s default features drag in OpenSSL; `rust-tls`
is the fix. Whole tree is rustls-only now, no C TLS dependency.
Next: step 2 — `config.rs` + `db.rs`. (done)

---

## How this was built

Three planned phases, all complete. The dated entries above are the record of each.

**The engine (steps 1-8)** — repo skeleton with pinned dependencies; `config.rs` + `db.rs` (TOML
config, SQLite schema); `feed.rs` (conditional GET, RSS-then-Atom parsing); `download.rs`
(streaming downloads, filters, URL dedupe); `retention.rs` (oldest-first quota and age reaper);
`ipc.rs` plus the daemon (Unix-socket JSON lines, TTL scheduler, CLI proxying to a running daemon);
`torrent.rs` (librqbit, seeding to a ratio or a time, stall abort); OPML import/export and polish.

**The web front end (steps 9-13)** — axum serving plain HTML and JS, no WASM toolchain, running
*inside* the daemon so it reads SQLite and the event bus directly: config hot-reload and the `[web]`
section; browsing feeds and entries with `ammonia`-sanitized show notes; media actions (Range
streaming, download on demand, delete, read/starred); feed configuration written back to
config.toml; live progress over SSE from the existing broadcast bus.

**Multi-user (steps A-D)** — accounts, sessions and sign-in (Argon2id, session cookie, a trusted
proxy header for Cloudflare Zero Trust); per-user read state; per-user subscriptions; and the rules
that follow from one file serving everyone. SQLite stayed: Postgres was considered and dropped, as
nothing here contends for writes.

### The live checks each step had to pass

1. `ipx add <feed>` + `ipx fetch` → file in `download_dir/<Show>/`, row in `enclosures`.
2. `ipx fetch` again → no re-download, feed skipped for TTL.
3. `ipx daemon &` + `nc -U $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/ipx.sock`, send `{"cmd":"fetch"}` → JSON events;
   a concurrent `ipx fetch` proxies to the daemon instead of downloading in parallel.
4. Delete a downloaded file by hand, `ipx fetch` → NOT re-downloaded.
5. Torrent enclosure → downloads, moves, stops seeding at the configured ratio/time.
6. `ipx reap --dry-run` under quota pressure → oldest-first hit list; real run flips rows to
   `reaped`.