chadvis-projectm-qt

ChadVis: The Suno Frontend for the Elite

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“I’m not saying this is better than sex, but I’ve never had sex that supported projectM v4 presets with zero-copy PBO frame capture.” — Some Senior Dev who definitely uses Arch, btw.

🚀 What is this?

ChadVis is a native C++23 / Qt6 desktop frontend for suno.com. Suno publishes no supported API for this client, so ChadVis works from capture-derived evidence recorded under docs/suno_api/ — an unofficial, [T1]/[LEAD]/[VERIFY]-labeled research corpus. Most of that surface is still unverified, so the client fails closed rather than guessing. On top of it sit local superpowers the web app can only dream of: a full projectM v4 video workspace with Milkdrop preset support, word-synced karaoke lyrics, FFmpeg recording, and an offline SQLite library cache.

Feature	The Chad Way	The “Other” Way
Language	C++23 (Pure Power)	Legacy Garbage
Product	Suno client shell, projectM second	Either one, never both
Visuals	projectM v4 (Milkdrop)	Flat static album art
Recording	FFmpeg software encode, HW paths in code but not enabled by the build	Recording your screen with a phone
AI Integration	Capture-based, fail-closed, unofficial	Guessing endpoints and hoping
Flex Factor	High (Arch BTW)	Non-existent KK&D n00bz

On that recording row, precisely: the encoder is real and the build links exactly libavcodec, libavformat, libavutil, libswscale, and libswresample (cmake/Dependencies.cmake:123) — no hardware-acceleration component, and no -hwaccel configure option anywhere in cmake/, CMakeLists.txt, or build.sh. Hardware paths are in the source: src/recorder/EncoderSettings.hpp:70-76 carries the NVENC/VAAPI/QuickSync/AMF enum, the panel offers h264_nvenc and hevc_nvenc, and src/recorder/VideoRecorderFFmpeg.cpp:553-640 opens a real device (av_hwdevice_ctx_create) and real HW frames. But that path is runtime-optional and inherited from your FFmpeg build, not something this project enables: the encoder is resolved by name through avcodec_find_encoder_by_name (src/recorder/VideoRecorderFFmpeg.cpp:333), so it works only where the installed FFmpeg was compiled with that encoder, and there is no in-tree evidence it has ever run. Defaults are software H.264 with no HW device (src/recorder/EncoderSettings.hpp:79,92). Read “HW” as not enabled by ChadVis, not as absent from the codebase.

🛠️ Quick Start

We build from source because we respect our hardware. Full prerequisites and platform notes live in the Installation Guide; the short version:

git clone https://github.com/Nsomnia/chadvis-projectm-qt.git
cd chadvis-projectm-qt
./build.sh

./build.sh performs an incremental build and preserves the existing CMake configuration. Use ./build.sh --rebuild only when a clean rebuild is required; ./build.sh --help shows the compact option list. The executable lands at build/chadvis-projectm-qt.app/Contents/MacOS/chadvis-projectm-qt on macOS (build/chadvis-projectm-qt elsewhere, because the macOS target is a real MACOSX_BUNDLE); the test suites are registered in build/tests, so run ctest --test-dir build/tests --output-on-failure — pointing ctest at build/ discovers zero tests and still exits zero.

📖 Documentation

Start at the hub: docs/README.md. If you only read one page, read that one.

Section	Start Here	Contents
User	docs/user/INSTALL.md	Install/build notes, config reference, usage & hotkeys
Dev	docs/dev/ARCHITECTURE.md	Process ownership, QML shell, bridges, contributing, testing
API	docs/suno_api/README.md	Unofficial capture-based research: endpoint inventory, OAuth gate, provenance. Most of it is [LEAD]/unverified; generation, B-Side, and billing routes are disabled or runtime-gated
Integration	docs/integration/SUNO.md	Suno integration, projectM v4 bridge internals
Lore	docs/lore/MANIFESTO.md	The manifesto, project history, dev banter
Changelog	CHANGELOG.md	What’s new, what’s still broken, pre-pivot history

🤝 Contributing

Think you’re a 10x developer? Prove it. Read docs/dev/CONTRIBUTING.md, send a PR, and make sure your code is as clean as a freshly formatted NVMe drive. No exceptions, only vc::Result<T>.

📜 License

MIT. Because we’re not as restrictive as Richard wants us to be, but we still love freedom.