FF00 Studio

Status: pre-alpha; protocol-v6 host slice and headless Surge semantic transaction verified Applicable version: 0.0.1-dev Last verified: 2026-09-10 Audience: users, contributors, audio developers, and future maintainers

FF00 Studio is a Windows-first, local-only music environment for working with Waveform, hosted VST3 instruments, reference audio, generated MIDI, and a replaceable local language model. It is the next program in the FF00 family.

The development Rack now runs a separate worker through bounded shared memory and has survived its first Waveform lifecycle and worker-kill tests. Bounded automatic restart, bounded retry, quarantine, and edit-reopen recovery now pass their first Waveform host proof. This is not a production-ready Rack: the full PDC matrix, offline rendering, constrained graph, Waveform automation, and audio analysis remain release gates. Surge child hosting, stable-parameter Preview, Commit/Discard, Master discovery, two-Rack isolation and worker replacement now pass their first live-host proof. Master also contains its first local Ollama Discuss path: it can list locally installed models and accept bounded, schema-validated advice without granting the model mutation authority. A first versioned Surge XT 1.3.4 adapter can translate nine curated directions into an exact ParamID plan. Directions may come from validated local-model output or the manual model-free selector. The plan is shown before a separate action may place it in reversible Preview. The real Rack/worker/Surge path now passes an unattended Preview/Discard/Apply/stale-plan proof; live Waveform listening validation remains open.

Architectural invariants

• The Rack audio callback never waits for another process.
• Cross-process DSP has explicit, host-reported pipeline latency.
• Master never enters the realtime audio path.
• .tracktionedit is snapshot-only, read-only context.
• Deterministic code owns capabilities, validation, mutations, and truth.
• Model output proposes actions but cannot invent authority.
• Discuss, Preview, and Apply are separate state transitions.
• Source and reference audio is never modified in place.
• Ordinary FF00 processing has no hidden network dependency.

Repository shape

crates/          Rust contracts and deterministic core
native/rack/     JUCE VST3 Rack
native/worker/   isolated plugin/DSP worker
apps/master/     Tauri 2 deterministic Rack-control surface
scripts/         reproducible feasibility and validation harnesses
docs/            source-of-truth architecture and appendices

Current validation

Rust, Tauri, JUCE, the development VST3, worker, and native harnesses compile on the Windows target. Sixteen Rust tests, all five native CTest entries, and the headless installed-Surge semantic acceptance probe pass. Waveform 14.0.49 loads the Rack, creates one isolated worker per retained Rack instance, cleans workers up when the edit closes, restores one fresh worker after reopen, and survives deliberate worker termination. Exact conditions and remaining unknowns are recorded in the validation record.

Documentation

• Master plan
• Architecture
• Development
• Experimental first-test manual
• Testing
• Public safety
• Feasibility audit
• Live implementation status
• Waveform host proof
• Local model provider
• Decision records

Licensing and contributions

FF00 Studio is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. Third-party components keep their own licences. See COPYRIGHT.md, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, and CONTRIBUTING.md.

The project-specific contributor copyright assignment follows the same version 1.0 legal structure used by FF00-vwm.

Copyright © 2026 Dominic Tscholl, writing as crimsonvariable.