VibeSonic is a lightweight, self-hosted music/media server written in Go. It follows the same philosophy as other small Vibe* tools: a single Go binary, SQLite storage, server-rendered Bootstrap 5 templates, dark mode by default, minimal JavaScript, and no external services (no Redis, no message broker, no microservices, nothing Kubernetes-specific).

This is Phase 1 of 4. It builds the foundation — configuration, database schema, authentication, the library scanner, metadata reading, direct streaming, cover art, and the web UI shell — that later phases build the full Subsonic/OpenSubsonic API on top of. Phase 1 does not implement the Subsonic protocol itself; see docs/subsonic-compatibility.md for what's planned.

Features (Phase 1)

SQLite storage (WAL mode, foreign keys, versioned migrations) with a schema already modeling artists, albums, songs, genres, contributors, playlists, favorites, ratings, scrobbles, playback history, bookmarks, play queues, shares, podcasts, internet radio, and settings
Native authentication: Argon2id password hashing, HTTP-only signed session cookies, CSRF-protected forms, session revocation
Optional Navidrome-style external authentication via a trusted reverse proxy header, gated on the real TCP peer address (never on spoofable X-Forwarded-For/X-Real-IP/Forwarded headers)
A library scanner supporting multiple music folders, incremental rescans, new/changed/deleted/renamed file detection, and a bounded worker pool — never a blind full rebuild
Real metadata extraction via ffprobe (multi-artist, multi-genre, MusicBrainz IDs, ReplayGain, embedded artwork/lyrics, sort fields, and more)
Stable, opaque, URL-safe IDs that survive restarts and rescans
Direct media streaming with HTTP range request support, correct MIME types, and no full-file buffering
Cover art discovery (embedded artwork or folder images) with a resized-image disk cache
A server-rendered, dark-mode, keyboard-friendly web UI: browsing, search, playlists, favorites, a persistent bottom player, and an admin section (users, music folders, scanner status, system settings)
/healthz and /readyz

Quick start

go build -o vibesonic ./cmd/vibesonic
VIBESONIC_SESSION_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32) ./vibesonic

Then open http://localhost:8080 — on a fresh database you'll land on the setup wizard, which creates the administrator account, your first music folder, and kicks off the first scan.

ffmpeg/ffprobe should be on PATH (or pointed to via VIBESONIC_FFMPEG_PATH/VIBESONIC_FFPROBE_PATH) for metadata reading and cover art extraction to work.

Docker

docker compose up -d

See docker-compose.yml — mount your music directory read-only at /music and set VIBESONIC_SESSION_SECRET.

systemd

See systemd/vibesonic.service.

Configuration

VibeSonic is configured entirely through VIBESONIC_* environment variables — see docs/configuration.md for the full list and defaults. There is no separate config file.

Documentation

docs/architecture.md — how the pieces fit together
docs/configuration.md — every environment variable
docs/external-auth.md — trusted reverse-proxy authentication
docs/subsonic-compatibility.md — protocol endpoint status

Development

go fmt ./...
go vet ./...
go test ./...

Most tests exercise real SQLite databases and, where relevant, the real ffmpeg/ffprobe binaries (skipped automatically if not installed). No mocks are used for the database.