docs(frank-tts): the harness sends a voice only in voice_id

The section this PR adds claimed speech.voice was the forwarded voice key. It is not: the openai-speech transport builds {model, input, response_format, voice?} and sets voice only when the CALL passed voice_id, tts.localVoice is the local Kokoro backend key, and speech.voice is the TUI speak-aloud voice whose enum is Kokoro-only. A restarted session proved it the honest way - the tts device arrived at 7772 with no voice key and got "unknown voice None; available voices: narrator1, narrator2, narrator3" - so the fresh-process success earlier that day was the run that was told to pass voice_id, not evidence of a setting. The law now reads: voice comes from voice_id alone, so a voice-less call is the harness default shape (the endpoint grew DEFAULT_VOICE in its own PR to answer it), and speech.voice must stay a Kokoro name - a pack name there breaks the vocalizer and does nothing for synthesis. config.yml reverted to am_fenrir on the operator box, and the worklog entry that recorded narrator1 as wiring carries the correction.
docs(frank-tts): the voice stack is deployed, and the harness speaks through it
2026-10-18 19:21:22 -07:00 · 2026-10-18 19:11:41 -07:00 · 2026-10-18 19:11:41 -07:00 · 2026-10-18 18:59:13 -07:00 · 2026-10-18 18:52:50 -07:00 · 2026-10-18 18:50:00 -07:00
25 changed files with 2243 additions and 104 deletions
@@ -110,7 +110,16 @@ RUN apt-get update -qq \
 # Same unprivileged uid as the frank-tts façade (10000): the voice packs and the
 # model directory are host state mounted read-only, and one uid across the pair
 # means one thing to remember about what is world-readable.
-RUN adduser --system --uid 10000 --home /app --shell /usr/sbin/nologin tts
+#
+# `useradd`, NOT `adduser`: this trimmed ubuntu:24.04 base ships no `adduser` at
+# all (verified 2026-10-18 against this digest — `adduser` is absent from the
+# base and is not pulled in by ca-certificates/curl/libgomp1 either), so an
+# `adduser` line dies at image-build time with crun's "executable file `adduser`
+# not found in $PATH". `useradd --system --uid 10000` succeeds and prints one
+# cosmetic warning (`uid 10000 is greater than SYS_UID_MAX 999`); the uid is the
+# point, and it is what matches the façade. The alpine façade Containerfile keeps
+# its own busybox `adduser -D -u 10000` — different base, different tool, same uid.
+RUN useradd --system --uid 10000 --home-dir /app --shell /usr/sbin/nologin tts

 WORKDIR /app
 COPY --from=build /src/build/tts-server /src/build/*.so* /app/
@@ -56,11 +56,14 @@
 # the registration body. The façade mounts the same host directory read-only for
 # its own name list, so one directory stays the single source of a voice name.
 #
-# COLD-VOICE LAW, THE REASON EXECSTARTPOST EXISTS. The FIRST speech request for
-# a registered voice decodes the whole reference clip to snapshot codec state:
-# 6.2-8.0 s, first audio byte at 5,530 ms. Every later request restores the
-# snapshot in 0.5 ms. So the unit warms every voice at boot, serially (~6-8 s
-# each), and `TimeoutStartSec=900` is what keeps a growing voice library from
+# REGISTRY LAW, THE REASON EXECSTARTPOST EXISTS. The voice registry is memory
+# only: a restart forgets every voice, and re-registering does not warm one —
+# only synthesizing does — so a boot without this hook leaves the façade
+# answering 400 for every name. The per-voice cold penalty is real but small, and
+# not the trial's 6.2-8.0 s: measured on the built container 2026-10-18 against an
+# empty registry, the first synthesis of a freshly registered voice cost 1,883 ms
+# against 1,226-1,283 ms for the requests after it. The warm pass runs serially
+# (two short syntheses per voice, ~5 s each) and `TimeoutStartSec=900` keeps a growing library from
 # tripping systemd's default 90 s start deadline. The leading `-` on
 # ExecStartPost is load-bearing: with `Restart=always`, a warmer that exits
 # non-zero (a pack missing its reference.wav, the engine still loading past the
@@ -104,7 +107,7 @@ HealthStartPeriod=120s
 [Service]
 Restart=always
 RestartSec=10
-# Model load (tens of seconds) plus one cold decode per registered voice.
+# Model load (tens of seconds) plus two short syntheses per registered voice.
 TimeoutStartSec=900
 ExecStartPost=-/usr/bin/podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh

@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
 # /home/dank/voices holding reference.wav; the shim refuses any name without
 # one (400 + the list that does exist) rather than narrating in a fallback
 # voice nobody chose. The engine behind it is a separate decision —
-# TTS_BACKEND in scripts/frank-tts.env picks between forwarding to an
-# OpenAI-shaped upstream on host :8880 and running a local CLI binary per
-# request.
+# TTS_BACKEND in scripts/frank-tts.env picks between forwarding to the
+# OpenAI-shaped engine (`frank-tts-engine`, [[Frank TTS Engine]]) and running a
+# local CLI binary per request.
 #
 # IMAGE. Built locally from dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile by
 # deploy-remote.sh (build_compose_image), like loki/alloy: python 3.12-alpine
@@ -19,16 +19,27 @@
 # Pull=never and the localhost/ prefix are required — this host's quadlet
 # path cannot resolve a locally built tag from local storage otherwise.
 #
-# NETWORK. Bridge (dankclaw_default), NOT host: nothing here needs a shared
-# loopback namespace, and the comfyui/loki/authentik units are bridge too.
-# Consequences both ways: consumers reach it on the published 7772, and the
-# shim reaches the host-side TTS engine through host.containers.internal
-# (never the LAN IP — a bridge netns cannot route to the host's own address
-# for every bind shape, and the fleet's law is the gateway name). NOTE for
-# whoever starts the :8880 engine: host.containers.internal reaches the host
-# network namespace, so the engine must bind an address that namespace
-# accepts; a 127.0.0.1-only bind is not it (the 2026-09-17 signal-relay hop
-# needed the host LAN bind for the same reason).
+# NETWORK. TWO attached networks, and the order is the one the open-notebook
+# pair uses: `dankclaw_default` first (the default route, and where consumers
+# live — they reach the published 7772, and open-notebook dials
+# `http://frank-tts:7772/v1` by container name), then the voice pair's private
+# bridge, `frank-tts-engine.network`, where the arm A engine lives. The shim's
+# upstream is therefore the engine's container DNS name
+# (`http://frank-tts-engine:8880`, scripts/frank-tts.env) and NOT
+# host.containers.internal: netavark DNATs published ports only, so a bridge
+# container cannot reach a host-loopback bind — the shape that 502'd hermes —
+# and the engine publishes nothing at all. That file MUST be installed beside
+# this unit (the engine's handler does it; the façade handler re-installs it for
+# `--only frank-tts`), because with a referenced Network= file missing the v1
+# generator refuses to produce this container unit at all.
+#
+# ORDERING. Wants+After on frank-tts-engine.service, not Requires: the façade
+# has a second backend (`TTS_BACKEND=llama-tts-cli`) that needs no upstream, and
+# an engine that will not start must not take this endpoint's unit down with it.
+# When both boot, this comes up after the engine, whose ExecStartPost warm pass
+# is part of its start — so the first request of the day meets a REGISTERED voice
+# (the registry is memory-only) rather than a 400, and skips the ~0.6 s penalty
+# the first synthesis of an unwarmed voice costs.
 #
 # VOICES. /home/dank/voices is host state, never repo state, and is mounted
 # READ-ONLY: this endpoint has no business writing voice packs. Because the
@@ -41,14 +52,16 @@
 # carries them deliberately.
 [Unit]
 Description=frank-tts (cloned-voice OpenAI-compatible TTS facade)
-After=network-online.target
+After=network-online.target frank-tts-engine.service
 Wants=network-online.target
+Wants=frank-tts-engine.service

 [Container]
 ContainerName=frank-tts
 Image=localhost/franksdank/frank-tts:latest
 Pull=never
 Network=dankclaw_default
+Network=frank-tts-engine.network
 PublishPort=7772:7772
 EnvironmentFile=/home/dank/serverAppConfigs/scripts/frank-tts.env
 Volume=/home/dank/voices:/voices:ro
@@ -43,10 +43,15 @@ set -euo pipefail
 : "${QWENTTS_ALIAS:=frank-tts-engine}"

 # 0.0.0.0 inside the container is not "public". tts-server defaults to
-# 127.0.0.1, which inside a container netns is reachable by nothing — the
-# façade dials this container by its bridge address. The container publishes
-# 8880 on the host's loopback only (diagnostics and the boot warmer), so the
-# only namespace that can reach 0.0.0.0:8880 here is the private voice bridge.
+# 127.0.0.1 (its own usage prints `--host <ip> Listen address (default:
+# 127.0.0.1)`), and inside a container netns a loopback bind is reachable by
+# nothing outside that namespace — the façade dials this container by its bridge
+# address on the private voice network, which is why the address has to be
+# broad. The unit PUBLISHES NOTHING (see
+# dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container: no PublishPort at
+# all, not even 127.0.0.1:8880), so the only namespaces that can reach
+# 0.0.0.0:8880 are that bridge and this container's own loopback — and its own
+# loopback is exactly where the boot warmer and the health probe speak.
 : "${QWENTTS_HOST:=0.0.0.0}"
 : "${QWENTTS_PORT:=8880}"

@@ -16,17 +16,17 @@
 #      voice that did not warm becomes a deploy result instead of only a journal
 #      line (the unit's `-` prefix deliberately cannot fail the unit).
 #
-# WHY IT EXISTS AT ALL (the cold-voice law). The FIRST speech request for a
-# registered voice decodes the whole reference clip to snapshot its codec state:
-# 6.2-8.0 s, first audio byte at 5,530 ms. Every later request for that voice
-# restores the snapshot in 0.5 ms. Two facts make that a boot problem rather than
-# a curiosity: the voice registry is MEMORY ONLY (a restart forgets every voice),
-# and re-registering a voice does not warm it — only synthesizing does. So a boot
-# that registers the voices and stops leaves the first caller of the day paying
-# 5.5 s of silence. This script speaks one short sentence per voice instead, then
-# speaks a second one so the journal carries the warm number too: the line
-# `voice <name> cold=…ms warm=…ms` is the repo's standing proof that the second
-# request of a voice answers well under a second.
+# WHY IT EXISTS AT ALL (the registry law). The voice registry is MEMORY ONLY: a
+# restart forgets every voice, and re-registering a voice does not warm it — only
+# synthesizing does. A boot that registers nothing therefore leaves frank-tts
+# answering 400 for every name, so this script registers every pack it finds. The
+# per-voice cold penalty is real but small, and smaller than the trial reported:
+# measured on the deployed build 2026-10-18 against an empty registry, the FIRST
+# synthesis of a freshly registered voice cost 1,883 ms against 1,226-1,283 ms for
+# the requests after it — about 0.6 s, not the trial's 6.2-8.0 s. Each voice gets
+# two identical requests so the journal carries both numbers, `voice <name>
+# cold=…ms warm=…ms`; cold ≈ warm is the expected shape, and a large gap is what
+# would mean the snapshot path is broken.
 #
 # THE VOICES. /voices — the host directory /home/dank/voices mounted read-only by
 # the unit, the same packs frank-tts mounts for its own name list. A pack is a
@@ -47,7 +47,9 @@
 #
 # NOTHING HERE IS A SECRET, and nothing is logged that could be: the audio bytes
 # are discarded, the synthesized text comes from the env file, and the reference
-# clip is base64'd straight into the request body without ever being echoed.
+# clip is base64'd into a request body that is written to a temporary file and
+# handed to curl as `@file` — never echoed, and never placed on a command line,
+# because of the size law explained at the mktemp below.
 set -euo pipefail

 # The engine's own address, from inside its namespace. Loopback is valid HERE:
@@ -78,6 +80,43 @@ set -euo pipefail
 # systemd counts the whole warm pass against the unit's start deadline.
 : "${REQUEST_TIMEOUT:=120}"

+# The warm text goes into a JSON string literal by interpolation. Two steps make
+# whatever the two readers of scripts/frank-tts-engine.env deliver arrive as the
+# sentence itself:
+#
+# 1. Unwrap ONE shell-style quoting layer. bash (`set -a; source`) strips the
+#    quotes around a value with spaces; podman's `--env-file` does NOT — measured
+#    2026-10-18 against the image's pinned base, `WARM_TEXT="…"` reaches the
+#    container WITH its quotes. Unwrapped only when the whole value is exactly one
+#    quoted string (starts AND ends with `"` and holds no quote inside), so a
+#    sentence that legitimately contains quotes is never mangled.
+# 2. Escape the two characters that would corrupt or end a JSON string: a
+#    backslash, and a double quote.
+#
+# Without step 1 the body is `{"input":""Warm up…"",…}`, the engine's JSON parser
+# rejects it, every voice stays cold, and the boot still reads healthy. Voice NAMES
+# need neither step: the character class checked below admits no quote, no
+# backslash and no control byte.
+warm_text="$WARM_TEXT"
+if (( ${#warm_text} >= 2 )) && [[ "$warm_text" == \"*\" ]]; then
+    inner="${warm_text:1:${#warm_text}-2}"
+    [[ "$inner" != *'"'* ]] && warm_text="$inner"
+fi
+warm_json="${warm_text//\\/\\\\}"
+warm_json="${warm_json//\"/\\\"}"
+
+# The registration body is a FILE, never an argument. The kernel caps a single
+# command-line string at 32 pages — MAX_ARG_STRLEN = 131,072 bytes — and a shipped
+# reference clip base64's to about 1.27 MB, so passing the body as one argument
+# fails with E2BIG before curl is even executed. The first real boot of the unit
+# (2026-10-18, the three shipped packs) proved it end to end: `/usr/bin/curl:
+# Argument list too long` for every voice, reported as the misleading
+# "registration failed (HTTP no response)". `mktemp` lands in the container's
+# /tmp as the unprivileged `tts` user; one file for the whole pass, overwritten
+# per voice, removed on any exit — it is container scratch, not host state.
+body_file="$(mktemp -t frank-tts-warm.XXXXXX)"
+trap 'rm -f "$body_file"' EXIT
+
 fail=0
 log() { printf 'frank-tts-engine-warm: %s\n' "$*"; }

@@ -121,9 +160,16 @@ for dir in "$VOICES_DIR"/*/; do
        continue
    fi

-    body="$(printf '{"name":"%s","wav_b64":"%s"}' "$name" "$(base64 -w0 "${dir}reference.wav")")"
+    # The audio enters through a redirection rather than a command substitution:
+    # the file is several hundred KB, and both a shell variable and an argument of
+    # that size are what this script used to die on.
+    {
+        printf '{"name":"%s","wav_b64":"' "$name"
+        base64 -w0 "${dir}reference.wav"
+        printf '"}'
+    } > "$body_file"
    if ! code="$(curl -sS --max-time "$REQUEST_TIMEOUT" -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' \
-            -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary "$body" \
+            -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-binary "@${body_file}" \
            "${ENGINE_URL}/v1/audio/voices")" || [[ "$code" != "200" ]]; then
        log "voice '${name}': registration failed (HTTP ${code:-no response}) — the shim will answer 400 for this name"
        fail=1
@@ -135,7 +181,7 @@ for dir in "$VOICES_DIR"/*/; do
    start=$(date +%s%3N)
    if ! curl -fsS --max-time "$REQUEST_TIMEOUT" -o /dev/null \
            -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-            --data-binary "{\"input\":\"${WARM_TEXT}\",\"voice\":\"${name}\",\"response_format\":\"wav\"}" \
+            --data-binary "{\"input\":\"${warm_json}\",\"voice\":\"${name}\",\"response_format\":\"wav\"}" \
            "${ENGINE_URL}/v1/audio/speech"; then
        log "voice '${name}': registered, but the warm synthesis failed — first live request stays cold"
        fail=1
@@ -149,7 +195,7 @@ for dir in "$VOICES_DIR"/*/; do
    start=$(date +%s%3N)
    if ! curl -fsS --max-time "$REQUEST_TIMEOUT" -o /dev/null \
            -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-            --data-binary "{\"input\":\"${WARM_TEXT}\",\"voice\":\"${name}\",\"response_format\":\"wav\"}" \
+            --data-binary "{\"input\":\"${warm_json}\",\"voice\":\"${name}\",\"response_format\":\"wav\"}" \
            "${ENGINE_URL}/v1/audio/speech"; then
        log "voice '${name}': warm synthesis failed after a cold one that worked"
        fail=1
@@ -0,0 +1,483 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# build-voice-pack.sh — turn a SOURCE recording plus a CROP OFFSET into a
+# deployable frank-tts voice pack: the reference WAV, the engine's own speaker
+# artifacts made from it, and manifest.json provenance.
+#
+# THE PACK. $PACKS_DIR/<voice>/ carries the three members the pack law in
+# scripts/frank-tts.env names:
+#
+#   reference.wav    the crop: 24 kHz mono PCM (pcm_s16le), 18-25 s of clean
+#                    single-speaker audio. This is what makes a voice NAME real
+#                    (dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py lists and resolves exactly
+#                    this file), so it is written LAST, once everything else in
+#                    the pack has been verified.
+#   reference.spk    the engine's x-vector: enc_dim 2048 f32 = 8,192 B.
+#   reference.rvq    the engine's RVQ code stream: 16 codebooks x 11 bits = 22 B
+#                    per 12.5 Hz frame = 22 * floor(samples / 1920).
+#   manifest.json    provenance: source path and sha256, crop start/end, sample
+#                    rate, duration, the tool + engine commit that made the
+#                    artifacts, and the voice name.
+#
+# Both artifacts come from the pinned engine build's speaker extractor — the
+# `qwen-codec` tool of qwentts.cpp at VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT — run on the pack's
+# own WAV, and the extractor names them by swapping the input's extension, so
+# they land beside reference.wav with nothing to rename. Required, never a
+# replacement for the WAV: a voice another runtime cannot reuse is not saved.
+#
+# THE 10-SECOND GATE — THE REASON THIS SCRIPT EXISTS. Project-wide source-material
+# invariant: the first 10 s of any sample file used to generate voices is
+# forbidden material. An offset that starts inside that region is refused with a
+# nonzero exit BEFORE anything is created — no pack dir, no WAV, no artifact — and
+# the same gate is asserted a second time from the manifest that was just written
+# (plus the recorded sha256 against the source it claims). A pack carrying a
+# forbidden crop therefore cannot survive a build.
+#
+# THE ARTIFACT SIZES ARE CHECKED, NOT ASSUMED. They are a property of the codec
+# config inside the GGUF, so an engine bump that changes enc_dim or the codebook
+# count fails the build instead of shipping a pack the engine will reject at
+# synthesis time. Note the interaction with the WAV window: an 18.0 s crop is a
+# legal reference.wav but only 22 * 225 = 4,950 B of .rvq, under the recorded
+# 5,456 B floor, so the effective crop window is 19.84-25 s. That is a real
+# constraint and the builder says so up front rather than failing after a build;
+# serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankclaw/Voice Packs.md covers what to do on an engine bump.
+#
+# WHERE IT RUNS: the host that holds the engine build (Dankclaw). The extractor is
+# a CPU ggml binary — no GPU, no container, no fleet endpoint, no network. ffmpeg
+# does the crop; every spawned process runs `nice -n 19` so a pack build never
+# competes with the text endpoints on that box.
+#
+# IT NEVER DELETES. An existing pack is refused unless --force, and --force moves
+# the whole old directory aside into $PACKS_DIR/.AGENTTRASH/<voice>-<UTC>/ rather
+# than overwriting or unlinking a single byte.
+#
+# Usage:
+#   scripts/build-voice-pack.sh [OPTIONS] VOICE PACKS_DIR
+#   scripts/build-voice-pack.sh [OPTIONS] --all PACKS_DIR
+#
+# Options (anything not given comes from scripts/voice-packs.env):
+#   --env FILE      tunables file (default scripts/voice-packs.env)
+#   --source FILE   source recording for this voice
+#   --offset SEC    crop start, in seconds into the source (must be >= 10)
+#   --duration SEC  crop length; reference.wav comes out this long
+#   --sha256 HEX    expected sha256 of the source file
+#   --tool PATH     the pinned speaker extractor (qwen-codec)
+#   --all           build every voice in VOICE_PACKS, skipping none
+#   --dry-run       everything except the extractor: validate, cut the crop,
+#                   probe it, print the plan and the manifest it would write
+#   --force         retire an existing pack to .AGENTTRASH/ and rebuild
+#   -h, --help      this text
+set -euo pipefail
+
+REPO_ROOT="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/.." && pwd)"
+ENV_FILE="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/voice-packs.env"
+SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS=10   # the source-material invariant; not a knob
+WORK_DIR=""                   # scratch dir a dry run owns, removed on exit
+
+# Only ever removes the scratch directory this script created for itself; pack
+# bytes on disk are retired to .AGENTTRASH/, never deleted (see --force).
+cleanup_work_dir() {
+    if [ -n "$WORK_DIR" ]; then
+        rm -rf -- "$WORK_DIR"
+    fi
+}
+trap cleanup_work_dir EXIT
+
+die() {
+    printf 'ERROR: %s\n' "$*" >&2
+    exit 1
+}
+
+usage() {
+    sed -n '2,/^set -euo/p' "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" | sed '$d' | sed 's/^# \{0,1\}//'
+}
+
+# fcmp A OP B — float comparison (awk); OP is one of < <= > >= == and A/B are
+# already validated as plain decimals, so nothing user-shaped reaches awk as
+# program text.
+fcmp() {
+    awk -v a="$1" -v b="$3" "BEGIN { exit !(a $2 b) }"
+}
+
+# floorn X — greatest integer <= X, printed. Only ever called on positives.
+floorn() {
+    awk -v x="$1" 'BEGIN { printf "%d\n", int(x) }'
+}
+
+is_seconds() {
+    [[ "$1" =~ ^[0-9]+([.][0-9]+)?$ ]]
+}
+
+is_hex64() {
+    [[ "$1" =~ ^[0-9a-f]{64}$ ]]
+}
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------- arguments --
+VOICE=""
+PACKS_DIR=""
+ARG_SOURCE=""
+ARG_OFFSET=""
+ARG_DURATION=""
+ARG_SHA=""
+ARG_TOOL=""
+DRY_RUN=0
+FORCE=0
+BUILD_ALL=0
+
+while [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; do
+    case "$1" in
+        --env)      ENV_FILE="${2:?--env needs a path}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --source)   ARG_SOURCE="${2:?--source needs a file}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --offset)   ARG_OFFSET="${2:?--offset needs seconds}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --duration) ARG_DURATION="${2:?--duration needs seconds}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --sha256)   ARG_SHA="${2:?--sha256 needs a hex digest}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --tool)     ARG_TOOL="${2:?--tool needs a path}"; shift 2 ;;
+        --dry-run)  DRY_RUN=1; shift ;;
+        --force)    FORCE=1; shift ;;
+        --all)      BUILD_ALL=1; shift ;;
+        -h|--help)  usage; exit 0 ;;
+        --*)        die "unknown option: $1 (see --help)" ;;
+        *)
+            if [ -z "$VOICE" ]; then
+                VOICE="$1"
+            elif [ -z "$PACKS_DIR" ]; then
+                PACKS_DIR="$1"
+            else
+                die "unexpected argument: $1"
+            fi
+            shift
+            ;;
+    esac
+done
+
+[ -f "$ENV_FILE" ] || die "tunables file not found: $ENV_FILE"
+for tool in ffmpeg ffprobe jq sha256sum; do
+    command -v "$tool" >/dev/null 2>&1 || die "$tool is required and not on PATH"
+done
+
+# shellcheck disable=SC1090
+source "$ENV_FILE"
+
+# Tunables the env file owes us. Defaults are the engine facts read out of the
+# pinned tree; an env file that omits one still builds against the truth.
+VOICE_PACKS="${VOICE_PACKS:-}"
+SAMPLE_RATE="${VOICE_PACK_SAMPLE_RATE:-24000}"
+MIN_SECONDS="${VOICE_PACK_MIN_SECONDS:-18}"
+MAX_SECONDS="${VOICE_PACK_MAX_SECONDS:-25}"
+FRAME_RATE="${VOICE_PACK_FRAME_RATE:-12.5}"
+RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME="${VOICE_PACK_RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME:-22}"
+SPK_BYTES="${VOICE_PACK_SPK_BYTES:-8192}"
+RVQ_MIN_BYTES="${VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MIN_BYTES:-5456}"
+RVQ_MAX_BYTES="${VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MAX_BYTES:-6864}"
+TOOL="${ARG_TOOL:-${VOICE_PACK_TOOL:-}}"
+CODEC_MODEL="${VOICE_PACK_CODEC_MODEL:-}"
+TALKER_MODEL="${VOICE_PACK_TALKER_MODEL:-}"
+ENGINE_REPO="${VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_REPO:-https://github.com/ServeurpersoCom/qwentts.cpp}"
+ENGINE_COMMIT="${VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT:-5916bf7c79dbb4e66fc059cdc507a79a23a28bb4}"
+DEVICE="${VOICE_PACK_DEVICE:-CPU}"
+THREADS="${VOICE_PACK_THREADS:-8}"
+NICE_LEVEL="${VOICE_PACK_NICE:-19}"
+TRASH_DIRNAME="${VOICE_PACK_TRASH_DIRNAME:-.AGENTTRASH}"
+DEFAULT_PACKS_DIR="${VOICE_PACK_DIR:-/home/dank/voices}"
+
+[ -n "$PACKS_DIR" ] || PACKS_DIR="$DEFAULT_PACKS_DIR"
+[ -n "$PACKS_DIR" ] || die "no packs directory (pass it as an argument)"
+is_seconds "$SAMPLE_RATE" || die "VOICE_PACK_SAMPLE_RATE is not a number: $SAMPLE_RATE"
+is_seconds "$MIN_SECONDS" || die "VOICE_PACK_MIN_SECONDS is not a number: $MIN_SECONDS"
+is_seconds "$MAX_SECONDS" || die "VOICE_PACK_MAX_SECONDS is not a number: $MAX_SECONDS"
+
+# hop / frame arithmetic, derived once: the codec runs at FRAME_RATE Hz over
+# SAMPLE_RATE audio, so one frame is HOP_SAMPLES samples and one second is
+# FRAME_RATE frames.
+HOP_SAMPLES="$(floorn "$(awk -v r="$SAMPLE_RATE" -v f="$FRAME_RATE" 'BEGIN { print r / f }')")"
+[ "$HOP_SAMPLES" -gt 0 ] || die "VOICE_PACK_FRAME_RATE ($FRAME_RATE) exceeds the sample rate"
+BYTES_PER_SECOND="$(awk -v b="$RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME" -v f="$FRAME_RATE" 'BEGIN { print b * f }')"
+
+# rvq_bytes_for DURATION — packed size the extractor will emit for a crop this
+# long: whole frames only, because it truncates to the hop boundary.
+rvq_bytes_for() {
+    local samples frames
+    samples="$(awk -v d="$1" -v r="$SAMPLE_RATE" 'BEGIN { printf "%d\n", int(d * r + 0.5) }')"
+    frames=$((samples / HOP_SAMPLES))
+    printf '%d\n' "$((frames * RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME))"
+}
+
+# ------------------------------------------------------------------- build --
+build_voice() {
+    local voice="$1"
+    # The pack dir name is the voice name on the wire: app.py's VOICE_NAME_RE
+    # matches it exactly while the engine lowercases names internally, so an
+    # uppercase or punctuated name would be reported one way by the façade and
+    # another by the engine. Lowercase only, and nothing that could escape
+    # $PACKS_DIR.
+    [[ "$voice" =~ ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9._-]{0,63}$ ]] ||
+        die "voice name '$voice' is not a lowercase [a-z0-9._-] name starting with alphanumerics (app.py resolves it verbatim; the engine lowercases it)"
+
+    local prefix
+    prefix="VOICE_PACK_$(printf '%s' "$voice" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' | tr -c '[:alnum:]' '_')"
+    local source_var="${prefix}_SOURCE" offset_var="${prefix}_OFFSET"
+    local duration_var="${prefix}_DURATION" sha_var="${prefix}_SHA256"
+    local source="${ARG_SOURCE:-${!source_var:-}}"
+    local offset="${ARG_OFFSET:-${!offset_var:-}}"
+    local duration="${ARG_DURATION:-${!duration_var:-}}"
+    local want_sha="${ARG_SHA:-${!sha_var:-}}"
+
+    if [ -z "$voice" ] || [ -z "$source" ]; then
+        die "no source for '$voice': pass --source or set ${source_var} in $ENV_FILE"
+    fi
+    [ -n "$offset" ] || die "no crop offset for '$voice': pass --offset or set ${offset_var}"
+    [ -n "$duration" ] || die "no crop duration for '$voice': pass --duration or set ${duration_var}"
+    is_seconds "$offset" || die "crop offset '$offset' is not a number of seconds"
+    is_seconds "$duration" || die "crop duration '$duration' is not a number of seconds"
+    [ -f "$source" ] && [ -r "$source" ] || die "source not readable: $source"
+
+    # === THE GATE. Source seconds 0..10 are forbidden voice material, full stop.
+    if ! fcmp "$offset" '>=' "$SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS"; then
+        die "source-material invariant violated: the crop must start past the first ${SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS} s of the source file, and '$voice' asks for ${offset} s into $source. Pick an offset at or past ${SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS} s — nothing was written."
+    fi
+
+    local pack_dir="$PACKS_DIR/$voice"
+    if [ "$DRY_RUN" -ne 1 ] && [ -e "$pack_dir" ] && [ "$FORCE" -ne 1 ]; then
+        die "$pack_dir already exists; nothing was touched. Re-run with --force to retire it to $PACKS_DIR/$TRASH_DIRNAME/ and rebuild."
+    fi
+
+    local source_duration source_bytes source_sha
+    source_duration="$(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$source")"
+    is_seconds "$source_duration" || die "ffprobe reports no numeric duration for $source: '$source_duration'"
+    source_bytes="$(stat -c%s "$source")"
+    if ! fcmp "$(awk -v a="$offset" -v d="$duration" 'BEGIN { print a + d }')" '<=' "$source_duration"; then
+        die "crop ends at $(awk -v a="$offset" -v d="$duration" 'BEGIN { print a + d }') s but $source is only $source_duration s; the crop would come out short"
+    fi
+    if ! fcmp "$duration" '>=' "$MIN_SECONDS" || ! fcmp "$duration" '<=' "$MAX_SECONDS"; then
+        die "crop duration $duration s is outside the ${MIN_SECONDS}-${MAX_SECONDS} s reference window"
+    fi
+    local crop_end planned_rvq
+    crop_end="$(awk -v a="$offset" -v d="$duration" 'BEGIN { print a + d }')"
+    planned_rvq="$(rvq_bytes_for "$duration")"
+    if ! fcmp "$planned_rvq" '>=' "$RVQ_MIN_BYTES" || ! fcmp "$planned_rvq" '<=' "$RVQ_MAX_BYTES"; then
+        die "a $duration s crop packs to ${planned_rvq} B of .rvq, outside the recorded engine window ${RVQ_MIN_BYTES}-${RVQ_MAX_BYTES} B; lengthen the crop (that window starts at $(awk -v m="$RVQ_MIN_BYTES" -v b="$BYTES_PER_SECOND" 'BEGIN { print m / b }') s) — the source, not the codec, sets this floor"
+    fi
+
+    echo "VOICE      $voice"
+    echo "SOURCE     $source ($source_bytes bytes, ${source_duration} s)"
+    echo "CROP       ${offset} s .. ${crop_end} s (${duration} s) — past the ${SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS} s forbidden region"
+
+    source_sha="$(sha256sum "$source" | awk '{ print $1 }')"
+    if [ -n "$want_sha" ]; then
+        is_hex64 "$want_sha" || die "expected sha256 '$want_sha' is not 64 hex digits"
+        [ "$source_sha" = "$want_sha" ] ||
+            die "source sha256 is $source_sha, expected $want_sha: $source is not the file these offsets were cut from"
+    fi
+    echo "SHA256     $source_sha"
+
+    # Where the crop is cut. A dry run keeps its work in a scratch dir it owns;
+    # a real build stages INSIDE the pack dir so the final rename is on one
+    # filesystem and the pack becomes visible only when it is whole.
+    local stage_dir
+    if [ "$DRY_RUN" -eq 1 ]; then
+        WORK_DIR="$(mktemp -d "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/voice-pack-$voice.XXXXXX")"
+        stage_dir="$WORK_DIR"
+    else
+        mkdir -p "$PACKS_DIR"
+        if [ -e "$pack_dir" ]; then
+            local trash
+            trash="$PACKS_DIR/$TRASH_DIRNAME/$voice-$(date -u +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ)"
+            mkdir -p "$(dirname "$trash")"
+            mv "$pack_dir" "$trash"
+            echo "RETIRED    $pack_dir -> $trash (nothing deleted)"
+        fi
+        mkdir "$pack_dir" || die "cannot create $pack_dir (it may exist now); nothing was overwritten"
+        stage_dir="$pack_dir"
+    fi
+    local stage_wav="$stage_dir/staging-reference.wav"
+
+    nice -n "$NICE_LEVEL" env OMP_NUM_THREADS="$THREADS" \
+        ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel error -y \
+        -ss "$offset" -t "$duration" -i "$source" \
+        -map 0:a:0 -vn -ac 1 -ar "$SAMPLE_RATE" -c:a pcm_s16le "$stage_wav"
+
+    local wav_rate wav_channels wav_codec wav_duration
+    wav_rate="$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=sample_rate -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$stage_wav")"
+    wav_channels="$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=channels -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$stage_wav")"
+    wav_codec="$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$stage_wav")"
+    wav_duration="$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=duration -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$stage_wav")"
+    is_seconds "$wav_rate" || die "ffprobe reports no numeric sample rate for the crop: '$wav_rate'"
+    is_seconds "$wav_duration" || die "ffprobe reports no numeric duration for the crop: '$wav_duration'"
+    [ "$wav_rate" = "$SAMPLE_RATE" ] || die "reference.wav came out at ${wav_rate} Hz, not ${SAMPLE_RATE}"
+    [ "$wav_channels" = "1" ] || die "reference.wav came out with $wav_channels channels, not mono"
+    [ "$wav_codec" = "pcm_s16le" ] || die "reference.wav came out as $wav_codec, not the pcm_s16le the law names"
+    if ! fcmp "$wav_duration" '>=' "$MIN_SECONDS" || ! fcmp "$wav_duration" '<=' "$MAX_SECONDS"; then
+        die "reference.wav is ${wav_duration} s, outside the ${MIN_SECONDS}-${MAX_SECONDS} s window"
+    fi
+    echo "REFERENCE  ${wav_rate} Hz ${wav_codec} mono, ${wav_duration} s, $(stat -c%s "$stage_wav") bytes"
+
+    local spk_file="$stage_dir/staging-reference.spk" rvq_file="$stage_dir/staging-reference.rvq"
+    local stage_log="$stage_dir/staging-qwen-codec.log"
+    local spk_bytes=0 rvq_bytes=0 produced=false
+    if [ "$DRY_RUN" -eq 1 ]; then
+        if [ -n "$TOOL" ] && [ -x "$TOOL" ]; then
+            echo "EXTRACTOR  $TOOL (present; --dry-run will not run it)"
+        else
+            echo "EXTRACTOR  not present (${TOOL:-unset}) — --dry-run does not need it"
+        fi
+        echo "PLANNED    reference.spk ${SPK_BYTES} B, reference.rvq $(rvq_bytes_for "$wav_duration") B"
+    else
+        [ -n "$TOOL" ] && [ -x "$TOOL" ] ||
+            die "speaker extractor missing or not executable: ${TOOL:-VOICE_PACK_TOOL unset} (use --dry-run to build everything up to this point)"
+        [ -f "$CODEC_MODEL" ] || die "codec model missing: $CODEC_MODEL"
+        [ -f "$TALKER_MODEL" ] || die "talker model missing: $TALKER_MODEL"
+        # The extractor takes the WAV and writes its outputs next to it with the
+        # extension swapped — there is no -o, so the staged name decides where
+        # the artifacts land.
+        local extractor=("$TOOL" --model "$CODEC_MODEL" --talker "$TALKER_MODEL" -i "$stage_wav")
+        if [ -n "$DEVICE" ]; then
+            extractor+=(--device "$DEVICE")
+        fi
+        echo "EXTRACT    $(basename "$TOOL") at $ENGINE_COMMIT (device ${DEVICE:-auto}, $THREADS threads)"
+        if ! nice -n "$NICE_LEVEL" env OMP_NUM_THREADS="$THREADS" \
+            "${extractor[@]}" 2>&1 | tee "$stage_log" >&2; then
+            die "$TOOL failed on $stage_wav (its output is in $stage_log); the pack was not published"
+        fi
+        [ -f "$spk_file" ] || die "$TOOL wrote no $spk_file (see $stage_log)"
+        [ -f "$rvq_file" ] || die "$TOOL wrote no $rvq_file (see $stage_log)"
+        spk_bytes="$(stat -c%s "$spk_file")"
+        rvq_bytes="$(stat -c%s "$rvq_file")"
+        local expect_rvq
+        expect_rvq="$(rvq_bytes_for "$wav_duration")"
+        [ "$spk_bytes" = "$SPK_BYTES" ] ||
+            die "reference.spk is $spk_bytes B, expected ${SPK_BYTES} B (enc_dim x f32). The engine changed its speaker encoder — see [[Voice Packs]] before shipping this pack"
+        [ "$rvq_bytes" = "$expect_rvq" ] ||
+            die "reference.rvq is $rvq_bytes B, expected ${expect_rvq} B for a ${wav_duration} s crop (22 B per 12.5 Hz frame)"
+        if ! fcmp "$rvq_bytes" '>=' "$RVQ_MIN_BYTES" || ! fcmp "$rvq_bytes" '<=' "$RVQ_MAX_BYTES"; then
+            die "reference.rvq is $rvq_bytes B, outside the recorded engine window ${RVQ_MIN_BYTES}-${RVQ_MAX_BYTES} B — an engine bump? see [[Voice Packs]]"
+        fi
+        produced=true
+        echo "ARTIFACTS  reference.spk ${spk_bytes} B, reference.rvq ${rvq_bytes} B"
+    fi
+
+    local built stage_manifest
+    built="$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)"
+    stage_manifest="$stage_dir/staging-manifest.json"
+    jq -n \
+        --arg voice "$voice" \
+        --arg built "$built" \
+        --arg builder "scripts/build-voice-pack.sh" \
+        --arg env_file "$ENV_FILE" \
+        --arg src "$source" \
+        --arg src_sha "$source_sha" \
+        --argjson src_bytes "$source_bytes" \
+        --argjson src_duration "$source_duration" \
+        --argjson offset "$offset" \
+        --argjson end "$crop_end" \
+        --argjson duration "$duration" \
+        --argjson forbidden "$SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS" \
+        --argjson rate "$SAMPLE_RATE" \
+        --argjson wav_duration "$wav_duration" \
+        --arg wav_codec "$wav_codec" \
+        --argjson wav_channels "$wav_channels" \
+        --argjson wav_bytes "$(stat -c%s "$stage_wav")" \
+        --arg tool "${TOOL:-unset}" \
+        --arg repo "$ENGINE_REPO" \
+        --arg commit "$ENGINE_COMMIT" \
+        --arg codec "$CODEC_MODEL" \
+        --arg talker "$TALKER_MODEL" \
+        --arg device "$DEVICE" \
+        --argjson produced "$produced" \
+        --argjson spk_bytes "$spk_bytes" \
+        --argjson rvq_bytes "$rvq_bytes" \
+        --argjson planned_rvq "$(rvq_bytes_for "$wav_duration")" \
+        --argjson dry_run "$DRY_RUN" \
+        '{
+            voice: $voice,
+            kind: "voice-pack",
+            built_utc: $built,
+            builder: $builder,
+            tunables: $env_file,
+            dry_run: ($dry_run == 1),
+            source: {
+                path: $src,
+                sha256: $src_sha,
+                bytes: $src_bytes,
+                duration_seconds: $src_duration
+            },
+            crop: {
+                offset_seconds: $offset,
+                end_seconds: $end,
+                duration_seconds: $duration
+            },
+            reference: {
+                file: "reference.wav",
+                codec: $wav_codec,
+                sample_rate: $rate,
+                channels: $wav_channels,
+                duration_seconds: $wav_duration,
+                bytes: $wav_bytes
+            },
+            artifacts: {
+                produced: $produced,
+                tool: $tool,
+                engine_repo: $repo,
+                engine_commit: $commit,
+                device: $device,
+                codec_model: $codec,
+                talker_model: $talker,
+                spk: {file: "reference.spk", bytes: $spk_bytes},
+                rvq: {file: "reference.rvq", bytes: $rvq_bytes, planned_bytes: $planned_rvq}
+            },
+            invariant: {
+                name: "source-material invariant",
+                rule: "a voice crop MUST start past the first 10 seconds of the source file",
+                forbidden_source_seconds: $forbidden,
+                crop_offset_seconds: $offset
+            }
+        }' >"$stage_manifest"
+
+    # Assert the gate a second time, FROM the manifest, next to the bytes it
+    # describes. Anything short of a pass leaves the staged pack unpublished.
+    local recorded_offset recorded_sha
+    recorded_offset="$(jq -r '.crop.offset_seconds' "$stage_manifest")"
+    recorded_sha="$(jq -r '.source.sha256' "$stage_manifest")"
+    jq -e --argjson min "$SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS" \
+        '(.crop.offset_seconds | type == "number") and .invariant.forbidden_source_seconds == $min and (.crop.offset_seconds >= $min) and (.invariant.name == "source-material invariant")' \
+        "$stage_manifest" >/dev/null ||
+        die "manifest assertion failed: .crop.offset_seconds ($recorded_offset) does not clear the ${SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS} s source-material invariant"
+    [ "$recorded_sha" = "$source_sha" ] ||
+        die "manifest assertion failed: .source.sha256 ($recorded_sha) is not the hash of $source ($source_sha)"
+    jq -e '(.voice | type == "string") and (.reference.sample_rate | type == "number") and (.reference.duration_seconds | type == "number") and (.artifacts.engine_commit | length == 40)' \
+        "$stage_manifest" >/dev/null ||
+        die "manifest assertion failed: voice / reference / engine provenance fields are not all present"
+    echo "MANIFEST   crop offset $recorded_offset s clears the ${SOURCE_FORBIDDEN_SECONDS} s invariant"
+
+    if [ "$DRY_RUN" -eq 1 ]; then
+        echo "MANIFEST_BEGIN"
+        cat "$stage_manifest"
+        echo "MANIFEST_END"
+        echo "PLAN       would write $pack_dir/{reference.wav,reference.spk,reference.rvq,manifest.json}"
+        echo "DRYRUN     $voice: inputs valid, crop cut and probed, extractor not run"
+    else
+        # reference.wav is the gate the shim reads, so it lands last: the voice
+        # name never exists on disk in a state the artifacts are not behind it.
+        mv "$stage_log" "$pack_dir/qwen-codec.log"
+        mv "$spk_file" "$pack_dir/reference.spk"
+        mv "$rvq_file" "$pack_dir/reference.rvq"
+        mv "$stage_manifest" "$pack_dir/manifest.json"
+        mv "$stage_wav" "$pack_dir/reference.wav"
+        echo "BUILT      $pack_dir (voice '$voice': ${wav_duration} s, spk ${spk_bytes} B, rvq ${rvq_bytes} B)"
+        echo "VOICE_PACK_BUILT $voice $pack_dir"
+    fi
+
+}
+
+if [ "$BUILD_ALL" -eq 1 ]; then
+    [ -z "$VOICE" ] || die "--all takes no voice name (got '$VOICE'); the list comes from VOICE_PACKS"
+    for flag in "$ARG_SOURCE" "$ARG_OFFSET" "$ARG_DURATION" "$ARG_SHA"; do
+        [ -z "$flag" ] || die "--all reads every crop from $ENV_FILE; --source/--offset/--duration/--sha256 would apply one value to all of them"
+    done
+    read -r -a voices <<<"$VOICE_PACKS"
+    [ "${#voices[@]}" -gt 0 ] || die "VOICE_PACKS is empty in $ENV_FILE"
+    for voice in "${voices[@]}"; do
+        build_voice "$voice"
+    done
+else
+    [ -n "$VOICE" ] || { usage >&2; die "no voice name given"; }
+    build_voice "$VOICE"
+fi
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ SERVICE_ORDER = (
    # a dependency of the 7772 facade, so it is planned (and therefore
    # restarted) first.
    "frank-tts-engine",
+    "frank-tts",
    "frank-dragoon",
    "frank-zealot",
    "frank-archon",
@@ -102,6 +103,7 @@ DANKCLAW_SERVICES = {
    "frank-dragoon",
    "frank-zealot",
    "frank-tts-engine",
+    "frank-tts",
 }

 DANKSERVER_SERVICES = {
@@ -342,6 +344,15 @@ def services_for_path(path: str, target: str) -> set[str]:
                             "Containerfile.engine", "tts-engine-start.sh",
                             "tts-engine-warm.sh"}:
                _add(services, "frank-tts-engine")
+            # The 7772 façade is the other deployable in this directory. The
+            # bridge file is named after the ENGINE unit (install_quadlet copies
+            # `$unit.network` beside `$unit.container`), yet both units attach
+            # to it, so a subnet change is a change to both. Anything else here
+            # belongs to neither deployable and plans nothing.
+            if parts[-1] in {"frank-tts.container", "app.py", "Containerfile"}:
+                _add(services, "frank-tts")
+            if parts[-1] == "frank-tts-engine.network":
+                _add(services, "frank-tts")
            return services
        # frank-dragoon left the quadlet shape on 2026-09-19 (CIRU v4.4.1 host
        # build, root unit): its files live in scripts/ and map there.
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ service_is_allowed() {
        dankclaw:caddy|dankclaw:homepage|dankclaw:seerr|dankclaw:marreta|\
        dankclaw:open-notebook|\
        dankclaw:frank-dragoon|dankclaw:frank-zealot|\
-        dankclaw:frank-tts-engine|\
+        dankclaw:frank-tts-engine|dankclaw:frank-tts|\
        dankserver:romm-mariadb|dankserver:romm-redis|dankserver:romm|\
        dankserver:copyparty|dankserver:jellyfin|dankserver:calibre-web|dankserver:calibre-server|dankserver:plex|dankserver:tautulli|\
        dankserver:prowlarr|dankserver:qbittorrent|dankserver:radarr|\
@@ -541,6 +541,14 @@ deploy_observability() {

 build_compose_image() {
    local service="$1" image cfhash oldhash containerfile
+    # Every file the image COPIES IN, beside the Containerfile. The skip below
+    # compares a hash against the image's `cfhash` label, so anything the build
+    # bakes must be in that hash or the deploy silently keeps serving the old
+    # bytes: an edited app.py or warm hook leaves the Containerfile untouched,
+    # the label matches, `podman build` never runs, and the health gate passes on
+    # a stale container. Services whose Containerfile pulls everything at
+    # build time (comfyui, loki, alloy) keep an empty list.
+    local -a extra=()
    case "$service" in
        comfyui)
            image=comfyui-rocm:gfx1151
@@ -550,6 +558,15 @@ build_compose_image() {
            image="franksdank/$service:latest"
            containerfile="dankclaw/$service/Containerfile"
            ;;
+        frank-tts)
+            # The 7772 façade: stdlib python + ffmpeg, app.py copied in. Listed
+            # explicitly because build_compose_image's `*)` arm returns 0 — an
+            # unlisted service builds nothing and the unit's Pull=never then
+            # fails on a tag that was never made.
+            image=franksdank/frank-tts:latest
+            containerfile=dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile
+            extra=(dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py)
+            ;;
        frank-tts-engine)
            # The arm A TTS engine (qwentts.cpp `tts-server`). Built from
            # source at a pinned upstream commit, so the build needs network
@@ -557,12 +574,16 @@ build_compose_image() {
            # offline: the clone only happens when this Containerfile changes.
            image=franksdank/frank-tts-engine:latest
            containerfile=dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile.engine
+            # start.sh is the image's CMD and the warmer is the unit's
+            # ExecStartPost; both are COPY'd in, so both decide what this image is.
+            extra=(dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-start.sh
+                   dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh)
            ;;
        *)
            return 0
            ;;
    esac
-    cfhash="$(sha256sum "$containerfile" | cut -d' ' -f1)"
+    cfhash="$(sha256sum "$containerfile" "${extra[@]}" | cut -d' ' -f1 | tr -d '\n')"
    oldhash="$(podman image inspect "$image" --format '{{index .Config.Labels "cfhash"}}' 2>/dev/null || echo none)"
    if [[ "$oldhash" != "$cfhash" ]]; then
        # --format docker is required, not cosmetic: podman defaults to the OCI
@@ -801,6 +822,43 @@ deploy_frank_tts_engine() {
    podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh
 }

+deploy_frank_tts() {
+    # The 7772 façade in front of frank-tts-engine. Weights and the engine build
+    # are not this handler's business, but the BRIDGE FILE is: this unit
+    # references frank-tts-engine.network, and with a referenced Network= file
+    # absent the v1 generator refuses to produce the container unit at all. So
+    # `--only frank-tts` installs the engine's quadlet pair too — idempotent, and
+    # it is what makes the façade deployable on a host where the engine was
+    # planned separately or not at all.
+    #
+    # The voice packs are host state (the pack builder writes them), but the
+    # directory is created here as the deploy user on purpose: rootless podman
+    # would otherwise auto-create a missing bind source as root-owned, and the
+    # container runs as uid 10000.
+    mkdir -p /home/dank/voices
+
+    build_compose_image frank-tts
+    install_quadlet frank-tts-engine dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet frank-tts-engine
+    install_quadlet frank-tts dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet frank-tts
+    systemctl --user start frank-tts-engine-network.service
+
+    # No `systemctl --user enable` (generated Quadlet units cannot be enabled on
+    # this host); boot persistence is the [Install] section in each unit. The
+    # façade unit carries Wants=/After= on frank-tts-engine.service, so this
+    # restart pulls the engine — and its ExecStartPost warm pass — ahead of it:
+    # an engine that will not start delays this gate instead of taking the
+    # endpoint down with it.
+    systemctl --user restart frank-tts.service
+    # The gate is podman's recorded health, driven by the unit's own HealthCmd
+    # (`wget --spider -q http://127.0.0.1:7772/health`, inside the container's
+    # namespace). /health answers 200 with the backend name and the resolved
+    # voice list, so an empty /voices still reads healthy while a dead app does
+    # not — and note what this gate cannot see: the engine publishes no port on
+    # purpose, so an engine that is down shows up in the /health payload and in
+    # the first synthesis, never here.
+    wait_container_healthy frank-tts 120
+}
+
 deploy_comfyui() {
    # Build first: the unit's Image= resolves against local storage, so the
    # image has to exist before the generator starts a container from it.
@@ -1748,6 +1806,7 @@ deploy_service() {
        frank-zealot) deploy_llm_zealot ;;
        frank-archon) deploy_llm_archon ;;
        frank-tts-engine) deploy_frank_tts_engine ;;
+        frank-tts) deploy_frank_tts ;;
        hermes|hermes-dashboard|hermes-webui) deploy_hermes ;;
        romm|romm-mariadb|romm-redis|mariadb|redis) deploy_romm_stack "$service" ;;
        jellyfin) deploy_jellyfin ;;
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ valid_service() {
        dankclaw:node-exporter|dankclaw:authentik-postgres|dankclaw:authentik-server|\
        dankclaw:authentik-worker|dankclaw:authentik-outpost|dankclaw:authentik-outpost-ldap|dankclaw:anubis|dankclaw:seerr|\
        dankclaw:open-notebook|\
-        dankclaw:frank-tts-engine|\
+        dankclaw:frank-tts-engine|dankclaw:frank-tts|\
        dankclaw:frank-dragoon|dankclaw:frank-zealot|\
        dankserver:romm-mariadb|dankserver:romm-redis|dankserver:romm|\
        dankserver:copyparty|dankserver:jellyfin|dankserver:calibre-web|dankserver:calibre-server|dankserver:plex|dankserver:tautulli|\
@@ -27,18 +27,17 @@
 # below stop describing the process you are running. Nothing in this fleet
 # pins this container; that is a decision, not an oversight.
 #
-# THE COLD-VOICE LAW (why the unit has an ExecStartPost at all). The first
-# speech request for a registered voice decodes the ENTIRE reference clip to
-# snapshot its codec state: 6.2-8.0 s total, first audio byte at 5,530 ms. Every
-# later request for that voice restores the snapshot in 0.5 ms. Registrations
-# live in memory only, so a restart loses them and re-registration alone does
-# NOT warm the voice — the warm pass has to synthesize something. So
-# dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh (in the image at
-# /app/warm-voices.sh) runs on every start and speaks one short sentence per
-# voice. Skip it and the first person to ask for audio that day waits 5.5 s in
-# silence. It runs INSIDE this container — `podman exec`, from the unit's
-# ExecStartPost — so it reads /voices here and the keys at the bottom of this
-# file are its knobs too.
+# THE REGISTRY LAW (why the unit has an ExecStartPost at all). Registrations live
+# in memory only, so a restart loses them, and re-registration alone does NOT warm
+# a voice — the warm pass has to synthesize something. Without it the façade
+# answers 400 for every name until somebody asks for audio. So
+# dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh (in the image at /app/warm-voices.sh)
+# runs on every start and speaks a short sentence twice per voice. The penalty it
+# removes is about 0.6 s, NOT the trial's 6.2-8.0 s: measured on the built
+# container 2026-10-18 against an empty registry, the first synthesis cost
+# 1,883 ms and the requests after it 1,226-1,283 ms. The hook runs INSIDE this
+# container — `podman exec`, from the unit's ExecStartPost — so it reads /voices
+# here and the keys at the bottom of this file are its knobs too.
 #
 # STREAMING IS NOT BUFFERED. The same seed gives audio that differs in 92.2 %
 # of samples (-41.6 dB RMS) between `response_format=pcm` (the streaming path,
@@ -125,9 +124,21 @@ HEALTH_WAIT=300
 # The sentence each voice speaks to snapshot its codec state, and the text the
 # second (warm-timing) pass repeats. Fixed on purpose: the cold=/warm= numbers in
 # the journal are comparable across boots only if the input is the same. Kept
-# short because warming a library is serial — one cold decode per voice, 6-8 s
-# each, inside the unit's start deadline. Quoted because podman's env-file parser
-# and a shell `source` must both read the sentence as ONE value.
+# short because warming a library is serial — two syntheses per voice, ~5 s each,
+# inside the unit's start deadline.
+# QUOTED, and the quoting means two different things to the two readers of this
+# file, which is the trap here:
+#   * bash (`set -a; source`, how the repo's seams and any human read it) needs
+#     the quotes — an unquoted value with spaces is word-split and the second
+#     word is executed as a command.
+#   * podman's `--env-file` (how the unit actually reads it) does NOT strip
+#     quotes: measured 2026-10-18 against the image's pinned base, the value
+#     arrives as `"Warm up, one two three."` WITH them. Interpolated into the
+#     hook's JSON body that is `""Warm up…""`, the engine's parser rejects it,
+#     every voice stays cold and the boot still looks healthy.
+# So the value stays quoted for bash and the hook strips one matched pair before
+# it builds the request, then escapes what is left. Both readers now agree, and a
+# sentence containing a quote or a backslash still arrives verbatim.
 WARM_TEXT="Warm up, one two three."

 # Per-request ceiling for the hook. A cold voice measures 6-8 s, so 120 s is
@@ -30,21 +30,31 @@
 #
 # BACKEND SWITCH. TTS_BACKEND picks the shape and nothing else changes for the
 # consumer:
-#   omni-http      forward to an OpenAI-shaped upstream on the host (:8880),
-#                  carrying the voice along as base64 reference_audio. The
-#                  engine does the inference; the shim resolves the voice and
-#                  re-encodes to mp3 when asked.
+#   omni-http      forward to an OpenAI-shaped upstream, carrying the voice along
+#                  as base64 reference_audio. The engine does the inference; the
+#                  shim resolves the voice and re-encodes to mp3 when asked. The
+#                  shipped engine (frank-tts-engine) speaks a voice it has
+#                  REGISTERED on itself, from the same /home/dank/voices packs,
+#                  and warms them at boot — see [[Frank TTS Engine]] for what that
+#                  boot warm is for (a memory-only registry: without it every name
+#                  is a 400) and what it saves (~0.6 s).
 #   llama-tts-cli  run LLAMA_TTS_BIN once per request with
 #                  --tts-speaker-file <reference.wav>, nice 19 so a narration
 #                  never starves the text endpoints on this box. Needs
 #                  LLAMA_TTS_BIN + LLAMA_TTS_MODEL filled in; LLAMA_TTS_MMPROJ
 #                  only if that binary takes a projector.
-# The upstream address is host.containers.internal — the gateway name a bridge
-# container uses for the host. It is NOT the LAN IP and it is NOT
-# 127.0.0.1: a bridge netns has neither.
+
+# THE UPSTREAM ADDRESS. The engine is a container on the private bridge this
+# unit also joins (dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network), so
+# this is its container DNS name. It used to read
+# `http://host.containers.internal:8880`, which is a shape that cannot work: a
+# bridge container reaches the host's network namespace, netavark DNATs PUBLISHED
+# ports only, and an engine on the host's loopback is published to nobody
+# ([[Container Network Namespaces]] — the trap that 502'd hermes). Inert under
+# TTS_BACKEND=llama-tts-cli, which needs no upstream at all.
 VOICES_DIR=/voices
 TTS_BACKEND=omni-http
-TTS_UPSTREAM=http://host.containers.internal:8880
+TTS_UPSTREAM=http://frank-tts-engine:8880
 TTS_UPSTREAM_MODEL=voxcpm2

 # CLI-backend knobs, inert while TTS_BACKEND=omni-http. Empty means "not
@@ -257,6 +257,14 @@ for path in "${CHANGED[@]}"; do
            add_test tests/scripts_syntax.bats
            add_test tests/deployment_scoping.bats
            ;;
+        # The voice-pack builder is the only thing that enforces the 10-second
+        # source-material invariant and the artifact sizes the packs are pinned
+        # to, so it selects its own seam rather than landing on the generic
+        # scripts/* syntax fallback. This case has to precede that fallback.
+        scripts/build-voice-pack.sh|scripts/voice-packs.env)
+            add_test tests/voice_pack_unit.bats
+            add_test tests/scripts_syntax.bats
+            ;;
        scripts/*)
            add_test tests/scripts_syntax.bats
            ;;
@@ -0,0 +1,123 @@
+# voice-packs.env — tunables for the **frank-tts voice packs**: the three
+# numbers per voice (source file, crop offset, crop length) plus the pinned
+# engine facts that turn a crop into a pack. Read by
+# `scripts/build-voice-pack.sh`, which is the only thing that consumes this
+# file — the running service reads none of it, because the packs themselves are
+# the interface (see scripts/frank-tts.env for what the shim resolves).
+#
+# WHAT IS TRACKED HERE AND WHAT IS NOT. Paths and numbers, never credentials,
+# which is the same rule the other `scripts/*.env` files follow. The pack
+# DIRECTORIES are host state under $VOICE_PACK_DIR and stay out of the repo; the
+# crops that produce them are exactly the kind of decision worth a diff, so the
+# offsets live here. If a crop changes, change it here and rebuild with
+# --force — the manifest inside the pack records what was actually cut.
+#
+# THE OFFSETS ARE NOT ARBITRARY. Two rules pick them:
+#   1. The source-material invariant: seconds 0-10 of any sample file are
+#      forbidden voice material. The builder refuses a crop that starts inside
+#      that region and asserts the same thing again from the manifest it just
+#      wrote, so the values below are checked, not trusted.
+#   2. Speech density: the trial cut these from a silencedetect scan of the
+#      source (noise -35 dB, 0.6 s) and took the longest run of continuous
+#      speech at or past the scan window — a reference that starts mid-word or
+#      contains a page-turn of silence clones the artefacts, not the voice.
+#      serverAppConfigs-docs/Dankclaw/Voice Packs.md carries the recipe.
+#
+# WHY THE SHA256 LINES EXIST. A crop offset is a statement about one exact
+# file: 98.739 s into a re-encode of the same audiobook is a different sentence
+# and therefore a different voice. The builder hashes the source, compares it
+# with the pinned digest when one is set, and writes the digest into the pack's
+# manifest — so a pack can always be traced back to the bytes it was cut from.
+# The three values below are the trial's digests (2026-10-18), verified against
+# the files on disk.
+#
+# THE ENGINE BLOCK IS A PIN, NOT A DEFAULT. The speaker artifacts come from
+# `qwen-codec` in the qwentts.cpp tree at $VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT: it takes a
+# 24 kHz WAV, writes the RVQ code stream next to it with the extension swapped,
+# and with --talker also runs that talker's speaker encoder to write the
+# x-vector .spk. The talker has to be a **Base** build — the customvoice and
+# voicedesign GGUFs carry no speaker encoder and the extractor says so. The
+# sizes the builder then verifies (8,192 B of .spk, 5,456-6,864 B of .rvq) are
+# derived from the codec config in the GGUF, so an engine bump that changes them
+# fails the build on purpose; see [[Voice Packs]] for the bump procedure.
+#
+# HOST PATHS, NOT CONTAINER PATHS. This runs on the host that holds the engine
+# build (Dankclaw), outside any container, with no GPU and no fleet endpoint.
+# The model paths below are where scripts/download-frank-tts-engine-qwentts.sh
+# puts the GGUFs; until that fetch has run, the same two files sit in the trial
+# tree at /home/dank/voice-audition/qwentts/models/ and the tool is only in its
+# build directory. The SOURCE paths are the third thing to place: the three
+# sample files live on the workstation today and have to be copied to
+# $VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR on Dankclaw before a build can read them.
+
+# The packs root on the host: the directory frank-tts mounts read-only at
+# /voices, one sub-directory per voice.
+VOICE_PACK_DIR=/home/dank/voices
+
+# The pack list. `--all` walks it in order; every name has to carry the four
+# per-voice values below.
+VOICE_PACKS="narrator1 narrator2 narrator3"
+
+# Where the source recordings live on the engine host.
+VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR=/home/dank/voice-sources
+
+# narrator1 — Randall Munroe "How To", read by Wil Wheaton. Longest speech run
+# at or past the scan window: 98.739-118.636 s, 19.897 s, which packs to the
+# 5,456 B floor of the .rvq window.
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR1_SOURCE=${VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR}/audiosample.mp3
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR1_OFFSET=98.739
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR1_DURATION=19.897
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR1_SHA256=2299510467eb9143455d8c1e6a21601c3b451dd59c1dc99b99d4aacb54d1d850
+
+# narrator2 — "Abyssal Archive" (Lokey). 25 s is the ceiling of the reference
+# window and packs to exactly 6,864 B of .rvq.
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR2_SOURCE=${VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR}/audiosample2.m4b
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR2_OFFSET=191.13
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR2_DURATION=25
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR2_SHA256=8e1e33317baf67b2cca67e4ce1b095ae477a18285c7373ec18ad013f2cc320e0
+
+# narrator3 — "Children of Time" (Adrian Tchaikovsky, author-read).
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR3_SOURCE=${VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR}/audiosample3.m4b
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR3_OFFSET=489.232
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR3_DURATION=25
+VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR3_SHA256=6875d2c1db421ab96ccbb68855fa9efd4e054297e94dd1b4345eb6a9869da945
+
+# The pinned extractor and the two GGUFs it needs. $VOICE_PACK_TOOL is a build
+# output, not a download: rebuild it at $VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT after a bump
+# rather than pointing this line at a newer tree.
+VOICE_PACK_TOOL=/home/dank/voice-audition/qwentts/qwentts.cpp/build/qwen-codec
+VOICE_PACK_CODEC_MODEL=/home/dank/models/Qwen3-TTS-GGUF/qwen-tokenizer-12hz-Q8_0.gguf
+VOICE_PACK_TALKER_MODEL=/home/dank/models/Qwen3-TTS-GGUF/qwen-talker-1.7b-base-Q4_K_M.gguf
+VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_REPO=https://github.com/ServeurpersoCom/qwentts.cpp
+VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT=5916bf7c79dbb4e66fc059cdc507a79a23a28bb4
+
+# CPU only, and never in the way of the text endpoints on this box: ggml thread
+# count and `nice -n`. The extractor picks the best backend it is given, so the
+# device is stated rather than guessed.
+VOICE_PACK_DEVICE=CPU
+VOICE_PACK_THREADS=8
+VOICE_PACK_NICE=19
+
+# The reference window and the shape the packs are cut to. 24 kHz mono PCM is
+# the codec's own input rate, so no resampling happens inside the engine.
+VOICE_PACK_SAMPLE_RATE=24000
+VOICE_PACK_MIN_SECONDS=18
+VOICE_PACK_MAX_SECONDS=25
+
+# Artifact arithmetic, all four values read out of the pinned tree: the codec
+# runs at 12.5 Hz (1,920 samples per frame at 24 kHz), packs 16 codebooks at 11
+# bits = 22 bytes per frame, and the Base talker's speaker encoder emits
+# enc_dim 2048 f32 = 8,192 bytes. The .rvq window is 22 x 248 = 5,456 B up to
+# 22 x 312 = 6,864 B, i.e. crops of 19.84-25 s: an 18 s crop is a legal
+# reference.wav but too little code for the engine, and the builder says so
+# before it runs anything.
+VOICE_PACK_FRAME_RATE=12.5
+VOICE_PACK_RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME=22
+VOICE_PACK_SPK_BYTES=8192
+VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MIN_BYTES=5456
+VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MAX_BYTES=6864
+
+# Where a --force rebuild puts the pack it replaced. Nothing is ever deleted;
+# the retired directory stays readable beside its replacement until a human
+# clears it.
+VOICE_PACK_TRASH_DIRNAME=.AGENTTRASH
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 type: reference
-description: "frank-tts-engine is the arm A TTS engine on Dankclaw: qwentts.cpp's resident tts-server with the 1.7 B base talker, on a private podman bridge behind frank-tts — repo-owned, not yet deployed."
+description: "frank-tts-engine is the arm A TTS engine on Dankclaw: qwentts.cpp's resident tts-server with the 1.7 B base talker, on a private podman bridge behind frank-tts — deployed 2026-10-18, and it publishes no port on purpose."
 tags:
  - dankclaw
  - tts
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ timestamp: 2026-10-18

 `frank-tts-engine` is the **arm A text-to-speech engine** on Dankclaw: [qwentts.cpp](https://github.com/ServeurpersoCom/qwentts.cpp)'s resident `tts-server` HTTP process, holding the Qwen3-TTS **1.7 B base talker (Q4_K_M)** and the **12 Hz tokenizer (Q8_0)** in RAM once and synthesizing from there. It listens on container port **8880** and is **deliberately not a fleet endpoint** — the endpoint consumers address is `frank-tts` on **7772**, which resolves voice names, re-encodes to mp3 and owns the timeout budget. This page is the engine runbook; the endpoint's contract lives with its own page.

-**Nothing here is deployed.** This page documents repo-owned configuration — the Quadlet unit and network, the image build, the weight fetcher, the boot warmer, the deployer path — and the measured facts those files were written against. No container, image, weight file or network exists on Dankclaw yet, and the engine publishes no port at all, so there is nothing for the homepage checker or a browser to reach. Deploying it is a deliberate next step, in the order at the bottom of this page.
+**Deployed 2026-10-18.** The chain ran in the order at the bottom of this page — fetch (1.4 GiB, byte + LFS oid verified, 18 s), image build against the pinned commit, unit + network install, container-health gate, warm pass — and the live state still reads the way this page describes it: unit `active` with no drop-ins, container healthy 31 s after the build, **4.0 GiB** resident on a host that kept 17 GiB available, `3 voice(s) registered and warm` in the journal, and no published port anywhere. Two things the first real boot taught: the warm hook's registration body must reach curl through a **file**, not an argument (Troubleshooting), and `STEP 3/13 RUN useradd` is the first honest proof of the image's non-root user.

 **Host:** Dankclaw (`192.168.0.143`), rootless Podman, user `dank` — **Port:** 8880, **never published** — **Network:** the private `systemd-frank-tts-engine` bridge (10.89.5.0/24) and no other — **Deployer:** `frank-tts-engine` — **Consumers:** `frank-tts` (7772) and, through it, every voice request in the fleet including [[Open Notebook]]'s podcast renders.

@@ -50,17 +50,17 @@ The spread is the whole argument: at ±0.01 the engine finishes synthesizing 1.5

 ## Three laws this service lives under

-**1. The cold-voice law → the unit warms at boot.** The **first** speech request for a registered voice decodes the whole reference clip to snapshot its codec state: **6.2–8.0 s, first audio byte at 5 530 ms**. Every later request for that voice restores the snapshot in **0.5 ms**. Registrations live in memory only — a restart forgets every voice — and re-registering does **not** warm a voice, only synthesizing does. So `frank-tts-engine.container` carries
+**1. The registry law → the unit warms at boot.** The voice registry is **memory only**: a restart forgets every voice, and re-registering one does **not** warm it — only synthesizing does. A boot that registers nothing leaves the façade answering 400 for every name, which is why `frank-tts-engine.container` carries

 ```
 ExecStartPost=-/usr/bin/podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh
 TimeoutStartSec=900
 ```

-and the warm pass runs on every start including boot. Without it, whoever asks for audio first that day pays 5.5 s of silence. The `-` prefix is load-bearing: with `Restart=always`, a warmer that exits non-zero would restart the container and crash-loop the endpoint forever. The hook is `podman exec` rather than a host script **because this container publishes nothing** — there is no address the host could dial — and a consequence worth knowing: an exec inherits the unit's `EnvironmentFile`, so the warmer's knobs (`VOICES_DIR`, `HEALTH_WAIT`, `WARM_TEXT`, `REQUEST_TIMEOUT`) live in `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env` beside the engine's own. The deployer runs the same hook a second time so a failed warm becomes a deploy result rather than only a journal line, and so the per-voice numbers land on the console:
+and the warm pass runs on every start including boot. What it buys is registration (mandatory) plus a measurably smaller first request — and the size of that saving is **not** the number the trial published. **Re-measured on the deployed build, 2026-10-18,** against an empty registry (register, then time the synthesis): the first request for `narrator1` cost **1 883 ms**, the second **1 283 ms**, the third **1 226 ms** — about **0.6 s** of saved silence. A ~110-word request cost **9.4 s** and then **9.8 s**, so request time tracks the audio generated, not snapshot state. The trial's **6.2–8.0 s / first audio byte 5 530 ms / later requests 0.5 ms** ladder does **not** reproduce here; the 0.5 ms figure is an internal state-restore cost that was never an end-to-end request time, and the honest claim is the ~0.6 s above. The `-` prefix is load-bearing: with `Restart=always`, a warmer that exits non-zero would restart the container and crash-loop the endpoint forever. The hook is `podman exec` rather than a host script **because this container publishes nothing** — there is no address the host could dial — and a consequence worth knowing: an exec inherits the unit's `EnvironmentFile`, so the warmer's knobs (`VOICES_DIR`, `HEALTH_WAIT`, `WARM_TEXT`, `REQUEST_TIMEOUT`) live in `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env` beside the engine's own. The deployer runs the same hook a second time so a failed warm becomes a deploy result rather than only a journal line, and so the per-voice numbers land on the console:

 ```
-frank-tts-engine-warm: voice narrator1 cold=6821ms warm=412ms
+frank-tts-engine-warm: voice narrator1 cold=1402ms warm=1812ms
 frank-tts-engine-warm: 3 voice(s) registered and warm
 ```

@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ The packs themselves are host state at `/home/dank/voices/<name>/reference.wav`

 ## Status visibility

-The engine is scraped by **nothing in Prometheus** and has **no homepage card**, and both are shape decisions rather than gaps. It exposes no metrics endpoint; and since it publishes no port, there is no address the host's status checker (`scripts/homepage-status.py`, which dials `host:port`) or the `dankclaw_default` Prometheus container could reach. That absence is the point of the network shape, not a cost of it (see [[Container Network Namespaces]] for the netavark rule that makes a host-loopback publish useless to a peer container anyway). Its up-state is visible in four places, and the runbook uses all of them:
+The engine is scraped by **nothing in Prometheus** and has **no homepage card**, and both are shape decisions rather than gaps. It exposes no metrics endpoint; and since it publishes no port, there is no address the host's status checker (`scripts/homepage-status.py`, which dials `host:port`) or the `dankclaw_default` Prometheus container could reach. That absence is the point of the network shape, not a cost of it (see [[Container Network Namespaces]] for the netavark rule that makes a host-loopback publish useless to a peer container anyway). The pair's public signal is the endpoint in front of it: [[Frank TTS]] carries the card and is what a consumer can dial. Its up-state is visible in four places, and the runbook uses all of them:

 - `systemctl --user status frank-tts-engine` — the unit, including whatever the warm hook logged on the way to `active`.
 - `podman healthcheck run frank-tts-engine` — runs the unit's own `HealthCmd` against `/health` on demand and exits non-zero when the engine does not answer. This is also what `scripts/deploy-remote.sh` gates the deploy on (`wait_container_healthy`), precisely because there is no URL to gate on.
@@ -96,25 +96,27 @@ The **façade** on 7772 is the pair's public surface and carries the probe. Note
 |---|---|
 | `dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile.engine` | two-stage build of the pinned commit, proven cmake line, digest-pinned base, ships both scripts |
 | `dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-start.sh` | image entrypoint (`/app/start.sh`): env → flags, refuses to boot without weights |
-| `dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh` | boot warmer (`/app/warm-voices.sh`): register from `reference.wav`, speak one sentence, report cold/warm |
+| `dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh` | boot warmer (`/app/warm-voices.sh`): register from `reference.wav` (body via a temp file), speak a fixed sentence twice, report cold/warm |
 | `dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container` | the unit: bridge only, no publish, env file, two read-only mounts, health probe, warm hook, `Restart=always` |
 | `dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network` | the private 10.89.5.0/24 bridge, with the subnet registry |
-| `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env` | paths and numbers only, with the thread law and the cold-voice law in its header |
+| `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env` | paths and numbers only, with the thread law and the registry law in its header |
 | `scripts/download-frank-tts-engine-qwentts.sh` | weight fetcher: no resume, byte count + LFS oid check, `--verify-only` |
 | `scripts/deploy-remote.sh` → `deploy_frank_tts_engine` | weights gate → build → quadlet → restart → container health → warm |
 | `tests/frank_tts_engine.bats` | the seam: generator output, entrypoint argv, warmer against a stub engine, planner and routing maps |

-## Deploy order (host steps, in order)
+## Deploy record (host steps, in the order they ran)

-Nothing below has been run. Steps 1–5 are this service; 6–7 are what unblocks the podcast pipeline.
+Run 2026-10-18 as `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-tts-engine`, then
+`--service frank-tts`. Steps 1–6 are this service and the façade; only step 7 is
+still open.

 1. **Fetch the weights** — `scripts/download-frank-tts-engine-qwentts.sh` (1.4 GiB, byte + sha256 verified, idempotent; `--verify-only` is what the deployer calls).
-2. **Deploy the engine** — `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw frank-tts-engine`. Builds the image (needs github.com once), installs the unit and the network file, restarts, gates on the container's health status, then warms.
+2. **Deploy the engine** — `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-tts-engine` (`--service` is the only way to name one service; `deploy-remote.sh` is the remote half and takes `<target> <git-revision> [service]...`, so never call it by hand with a bare service name). It builds the image (needs github.com once), installs the unit and the network file, gates on the container's health status, then warms.
 3. **Confirm the endpoint is alive** — `podman exec frank-tts-engine curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:8880/health` → `{"status":"ok"}`, and `systemctl --user status frank-tts-engine` showing the unit `active` with the warm pass behind it.
-4. **Confirm the voices are known** — the warmer's journal lines must name every pack; once the façade is up, `curl http://127.0.0.1:7772/v1/voices` is the authoritative list.
-5. **Prove the cold-voice law is paid at boot, not by a listener** — two identical synthesis requests for one voice, back to back, from inside the engine's namespace; the **second** must answer well under a second (`warm=` in the journal is already that number; the manual pair is the confirmation on the real artifact).
-6. Then the façade on **7772** (its own page): nothing may be published there until the engine answers, because open-notebook's render fails the moment the façade is up and the engine is not.
-7. Nothing on 7772 exists yet — that is why open-notebook's podcast render cannot run. See [[Open Notebook]].
+4. **Confirm the voices are known** — the warmer's journal lines name every pack, and once the façade is up `curl http://127.0.0.1:7772/v1/audio/voices` is the authoritative list (the façade has exactly three routes: `/health`, `/v1/audio/voices`, `/v1/audio/speech`).
+5. **Measure the ladder instead of trusting the trial** — two identical requests for one voice back to back. The design expected 6.2-8.0 s then 0.5 ms; the deployed container gave **1,883 ms then 1,226-1,283 ms**, so the hook buys ~0.6 s and stays only for the registry reason (law 1). The retired numbers must not be quoted.
+6. **Then the façade on 7772** (its own page), after the engine answered — that order is the whole point of step 6: publishing the façade in front of a dead engine would make every consumer fail at the first voice line.
+7. **Open:** [[Open Notebook]] is still not installed, so nothing renders a podcast yet; the voice leg it waits on now exists.

 ## Troubleshooting

@@ -122,8 +124,10 @@ Nothing below has been run. Steps 1–5 are this service; 6–7 are what unblock
 |---|---|---|
 | Unit restarts every 10 s, journal says `cannot read /models/…` | weights missing or the mount is empty | run the fetcher; re-deploy |
 | Unit `active`, but every voice name returns 400 from the façade | the engine restarted and lost its in-memory registry, or the warm pass failed | `journalctl --user -u frank-tts-engine` for the warmer's lines; `podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh` |
-| First request of the day is slow, the rest are fast | the warm pass did not run (the hook carries `-`, so it cannot fail the unit) | look for `did not answer` in the journal — the warmer gave up while the model was still loading |
+| Every voice logs `registration failed (HTTP no response)`, with `/usr/bin/curl: Argument list too long` on the line above it | the hook handed the registration body to curl as one argument: the kernel caps a single argument at 131 072 bytes (`MAX_ARG_STRLEN`), and a shipped `reference.wav` base64's to about 1.27 MB | the body goes through a temp file and `--data-binary @file` (2026-10-18). Any pack over ~96 KB trips this, so no small fixture can see it — the seam ships a 300 KB pack for exactly that reason |
 | Everything is ~2× slower after a systemd tweak | a cpuset/cap pin changed `hardware_concurrency()` and the engine resized its thread pools | remove the pin (law 2) |
 | `502` from the façade with `frank-tts upstream request failed` | the façade cannot resolve or reach the engine | `podman network inspect systemd-frank-tts-engine` and `podman inspect frank-tts --format '{{json .NetworkSettings.Networks}}'` — the façade must be attached to the bridge; a `127.0.0.1:8880` or `host.containers.internal:8880` upstream in `scripts/frank-tts.env` is the old shape and cannot work |
 | A voice is missing from the list | its directory has no `reference.wav`, or the name is not lowercase | fix the pack; both are refused loudly by design |
-| `podman exec` in the deploy says `no such file or directory` for `/app/warm-voices.sh` | the image predates the warmer | rebuild: `build_compose_image` skips on an unchanged `Containerfile.engine`, and the `COPY` of the warmer changed it |
+| `podman exec` in the deploy says `no such file or directory` for `/app/warm-voices.sh` | the image predates the warmer | re-deploy: since 2026-10-18 `build_compose_image` hashes every file the image `COPY`s, not only `Containerfile.engine`, so editing the warmer rebuilds it — see [[deployment]] |
+| The warm pass logs `registered, but the warm synthesis failed` for EVERY voice, while a hand-run `/app/warm-voices.sh` succeeds | `WARM_TEXT` arrived **with its quotes**. podman's `--env-file` does no shell parsing — it takes the literal remainder of the line — so the env-file reader got `"Warm up, one two three."` where `source` gives `Warm up, one two three.`; the quotes plus a backslash then make the synthesis body invalid JSON | the hook strips one matched pair and escapes what is left; prove the value with `podman exec frank-tts-engine env \| grep WARM_TEXT`. The seam pins both readers, because a test that only sources the env file cannot see this |
+| A `502` for `/v1/voices` where the engine answers `200` on `/health` from the same boot | the engine restarted and its in-memory registry is empty again — `/health` is model-loaded, NOT voices-registered | re-run `podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh`; that is the same distinction the `frank-tts` healthcheck enforces |
@@ -0,0 +1,200 @@
+---
+type: reference
+description: "frank-tts is the fleet's cloned-voice speech endpoint on Dankclaw :7772 — the one voice surface consumers address, in front of frank-tts-engine; deployed 2026-10-18 and wired as the harness speech role."
+tags:
+ - dankclaw
+ - tts
+ - voice
+ - quadlet
+---
+
+# Frank TTS
+
+`frank-tts` is the fleet's only speech endpoint: an OpenAI-shaped
+`POST /v1/audio/speech` on **Dankclaw :7772** that answers `voice=<name>` with
+audio in that cloned voice. Everything else in the voice stack sits behind it —
+the engine ([[Frank TTS Engine]]) publishes no port on purpose, and consumers
+never learn a path.
+
+**Deployed 2026-10-18** — `./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-tts`,
+both units `active`, no drop-ins, and the homepage card's `wip` gate came off in
+the same change. Probes on the deployed endpoint: `/health` answers
+`{"status":"ok","backend":"omni-http","voices":["narrator1","narrator2","narrator3"]}`,
+and two different voices rendered the same sentence into **different** bytes
+(24 kHz mono PCM16, 4.24 s, healthy RMS) — so name resolution is real, not a
+pass-through of one default. The operator harness routes its `speech` role here;
+see [[#The harness speech role]]. What still waits is [[Open Notebook]]: its
+render needs the app installed, not this endpoint.
+
+| | |
+| --- | --- |
+| Host | Dankclaw (`192.168.0.143`), rootless podman, user unit `frank-tts.service` |
+| Port | **7772**, published (`PublishPort=7772:7772`); the family is 7770 dragoon, 7771 zealot, 7772 tts |
+| Routes | `GET /health`, `GET /v1/audio/voices`, `POST /v1/audio/speech`; everything else 404, and speech is POST-only |
+| Image | `localhost/franksdank/frank-tts:latest`, built from `dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile`, `Pull=never` |
+| Networks | `dankclaw_default` first (it owns the default route and the consumers), then `frank-tts-engine.network` (10.89.5.0/24, the bridge to the engine) |
+| Voice packs | `/home/dank/voices` mounted read-only at `/voices` — host state, never repo state |
+| Upstream | `http://frank-tts-engine:8880` (`scripts/frank-tts.env`, `TTS_UPSTREAM`) |
+| Rollback | `TTS_BACKEND=llama-tts-cli` runs a CLI binary per request and needs no upstream at all |
+
+## Naming a voice
+
+A voice **is** a directory name. `voice=narrator1` resolves to
+`/voices/narrator1/reference.wav`, and that file — not a manifest, not a config
+entry — is what makes the name real. omp's TTS device may send `voice_id`; the
+shim accepts either.
+
+The usable shape is `^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9._-]*$`: lowercase, starting with a letter
+or digit, then letters, digits, `.`, `_`, `-`, at most 64 characters. No slash,
+no `..`, no space, no uppercase. The lowercase requirement is where two rules
+meet: `app.py` would accept `[A-Za-z0-9…]`, but `tts-server` **lowercases
+names**, so a pack called `Narrator1` resolves through the façade and not
+through the engine. The boot warmer therefore refuses a mixed-case directory
+loudly instead of letting it half-work.
+
+Names are user-visible: an unknown voice comes back as
+`400 unknown voice 'x'; available voices: …`, and that list is the honest
+census. The podcast speakers are `narrator1`, `narrator2`, `narrator3` —
+[[Open Notebook]] is configured with exactly those three, so renaming them
+breaks episode rendering, not just speech. A personal voice gets the person's
+name, lowercase.
+
+## Voice packs
+
+One directory per voice under `/home/dank/voices`:
+
+```
+reference.wav    24 kHz mono PCM, 18-25 s of clean single-speaker audio
+reference.spk    engine speaker embedding (8 192 B)
+reference.rvq    reference codec codes (22 B per 12.5 Hz frame)
+manifest.json    source file, offsets, engine, sha256
+```
+
+`reference.wav` is the engine-agnostic term the façade gates on; the other two
+are what makes a voice reusable by this engine, and they come from the pack
+builder ([[Voice Packs]]) — never by hand, never fabricated from the WAV. Two
+laws apply to the
+source material: offsets always start **past the first 10 seconds** of the
+sample, and packs are host state that stays out of this repo. Because the
+container runs as uid 10000, files must be world-readable (`644`/`755`), and the
+directory must exist before the first deploy: rootless podman auto-creates a
+missing bind source **root-owned**, which reads as "no voices" rather than as an
+error.
+
+Adding a voice to a running stack is a two-step thing — drop the pack, then
+register **and warm** it with
+`podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh` — because registering alone
+does not warm it. The reason is the cold-voice law in [[Frank TTS Engine]], and
+the procedure with its proof (the second request under a second) is the
+`frank-tts-add-cloned-voice` skill.
+
+## Why the upstream is a container name
+
+`scripts/frank-tts.env` used to point at `http://host.containers.internal:8880`.
+That cannot work, and it is the trap this shape exists to avoid: a bridge
+container reaches the host's network namespace, netavark DNATs **published**
+ports only, and an engine on the host's loopback is published to nobody — the
+same shape that 502'd hermes ([[Container Network Namespaces]]). So both units
+attach to one committed Quadlet network and the façade dials the engine's
+container DNS name.
+
+The consequence worth stating before an operator meets it: **the engine is not
+reachable from the host at all** — not over the LAN, not over loopback. Its
+health, voice registry and logs are observable only through
+`podman exec frank-tts-engine …` and `systemctl --user status`. And the façade's
+own `/health` answers 200 with the backend name and the voice list it resolved
+without dialing the engine, so "façade healthy, engine down" is a real state: it
+shows up as a failed synthesis, never as a down probe.
+
+## Files
+
+| Path | What |
+| --- | --- |
+| `dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py` | the shim: stdlib only — resolves the voice, forwards, re-encodes mp3 |
+| `dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile` | python 3.12-alpine pinned by digest + ffmpeg, uid 10000 |
+| `dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts.container` | the unit: two networks, `Restart=always`, `HealthCmd`, `[Install]` |
+| `dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network` | the shared bridge, named after the engine unit and attached by both |
+| `scripts/frank-tts.env` | backend, upstream, port, limits — paths and numbers, no credentials |
+| `tests/frank_tts_unit.bats` | the shim against stub engines over real sockets |
+| `tests/frank_tts_engine.bats` | the pair's wiring: generator output, planner, homepage, deployer |
+
+## Deploying it
+
+`./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --service frank-tts` (or `--service frank-tts-engine --service frank-tts` for the pair):
+builds the façade image, installs **both** Quadlet units — including the
+engine's `.network` file, because a referenced `Network=` file the generator
+cannot find means the façade unit is not produced at all — creates
+`/home/dank/voices` as the deploy user, restarts the unit (whose `Wants=` and
+`After=` pull the engine and its warm pass ahead of it) and gates on podman's
+recorded health. It never runs `systemctl --user enable`; boot persistence is
+the `[Install]` section in each unit. Order matters in a full deploy:
+[[Frank TTS Engine]] is planned before this, and both before [[Open Notebook]].
+
+## Not scraped, and why
+
+`shared/prometheus/` gets **no** frank-tts job, and that is a considered
+absence. The façade exports no `/metrics` — `app.py` serves `/health` plus the
+speech route only — and this Prometheus 3 install refuses non-metrics content
+types: [[Prometheus]] records that the existing HTML probes (`comfyui`, the two
+`services` targets) sit **down** with
+`received unsupported Content-Type … and no fallback_scrape_protocol specified`.
+A `/health` probe job would therefore be structurally never-green, and because
+`LlmEndpointDown` is scoped `up{job=~"frank-.*"} == 0`, a permanently red
+`frank-tts` target would page on Signal every few minutes for an endpoint that
+is fine — the frank-archon lesson pointed the other way. The engine cannot be
+scraped at all: it publishes nothing. Status lives in `systemctl --user status`,
+`podman healthcheck run`, the two unit journals, and the homepage card, which
+probes `127.0.0.1:7772` for real now — the `wip: down` gate came off with the
+2026-10-18 deploy.
+
+## The harness speech role
+
+The operator harness reaches this endpoint through
+`~/.omp/agent/models.yml` — provider `frank-tts (dankclaw)`,
+`baseUrl: http://192.168.0.143:7772/v1`, `auth: none`, and the runner api
+`openai-speech` on the **model** row (naming a runner api at *provider* level
+fails the whole file's validation and disables every custom provider, which is
+how the fleet's chat endpoints disappear) — plus `config.yml`
+`modelRoles.speech: frank-tts (dankclaw)/frank-tts`. Four laws, read out of the
+harness bundle and measured the day of the flip:
+
+- **The only voice the harness can send is the `voice_id` argument of the call.**
+  The transport builds `{model, input, response_format, voice?}` and adds `voice`
+  **only** when the caller passed `voice_id`; no setting feeds it.
+  `tts.localVoice` is the *local Kokoro backend's* voice (it is what answered
+  `voice=kokoro/bm_george, backend=local` in the control test), and
+  `speech.voice` is the TUI's **speak-aloud** voice — its enum is Kokoro's list,
+  and it never reaches an HTTP request. So a harness call arrives voice-less by
+  default, which is exactly why the endpoint grew `DEFAULT_VOICE`: the declared
+  pack answers a voice-less request and the journal marks that line `(default)`,
+  while an **unknown** name still 400s with the list that exists.
+- **`speech.voice` must stay a Kokoro name.** Setting it to a pack name does not
+  select a pack; it hands the vocalizer a value outside its enum. (The first
+  draft of this section said the opposite and was reverted the same day, after a
+  fresh session's call came back `unknown voice None`.)
+- **There is no silent fallback.** An explicitly configured `modelRoles.speech`
+  yields exactly one candidate, so a dead 7772 fails the speech device with
+  *"No available speech model matches the speech role"* instead of quietly
+  degrading to Kokoro. That is the price of `auth: none` (which makes a dead
+  endpoint read as available) and it is the wanted shape: a narration job should
+  fail loudly rather than ship a voice Frank never asked for.
+- **A session older than the models.yml row cannot see it.** `models.yml` loads
+  at process start while `config.yml` is read live, so a long-lived session
+  carrying the flipped role fails exactly like a dead endpoint while a fresh
+  process succeeds in the same minute. Measured 2026-10-18: the open session
+  failed twice (provider/id form, then the bare id), `local/kokoro` succeeded in
+  that same session, and a fresh `omp -p --tools tts` returned `Saved 180524
+  bytes (model=frank-tts (dankclaw)/frank-tts, voice=narrator1, codec=wav)`
+  while the façade logged the matching `speech voice=narrator1 format=wav
+  chars=51 -> 180524 bytes` from the podman bridge. Rule the stale registry out
+  before blaming the service.
+
+## Troubleshooting
+
+| Symptom | Cause |
+| --- | --- |
+| `400 unknown voice 'x'; available voices: …` | the name is not a pack: case, spelling, missing `reference.wav`, or an empty/root-owned `/home/dank/voices` |
+| `(none: no voice pack with a reference.wav in /voices)` | the mount, not the voices: `podman inspect frank-tts --format '{{json .Mounts}}'`, then the directory owner |
+| Endpoint answers, synthesis fails | the engine: `podman healthcheck run frank-tts-engine`, then `systemctl --user status frank-tts-engine.service` |
+| First request of the day is ~0.6 s slower than the rest — or every name returns 400 | the warm pass did not run; it carries `-`, so it cannot fail the unit. `journalctl --user -u frank-tts-engine` for the warmer's lines, then `podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh` — the registry is memory-only (law 1 of [[Frank TTS Engine]]) |
+| The unit never appears after a deploy | the generator dropped it: `frank-tts-engine.network` is missing from `~/.config/containers/systemd/` |
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ podman exec open-notebook curl -sS http://frank-tts:7772/health
 podman exec open-notebook curl -sS http://host.containers.internal:7771/v1/models
 ```

-**The blocker to state plainly:** frank-tts is built, named and tested but **not deployed** — nothing answers on 7772 (`ss -ltn`, Dankclaw, 2026-10-18; [[Local TTS and Voice Cloning]] records the same census). open-notebook deployed today writes scripts and fails at the first voice line. frank-tts ships first, or podcast generation waits.
+**The blocker moved; it did not vanish.** frank-tts and frank-tts-engine are **deployed** (2026-10-18) and answer on 7772, so the voice leg works end to end — `podman exec open-notebook curl -sS http://frank-tts:7772/health` is the check to run the day the app exists. What still blocks a render is open-notebook itself: not installed on this host yet. When it is, the two provider rows above are the only wiring, and the seeded speaker profiles carrying OpenAI voice names are the first trap.

 **Why frank-zealot and not frank-dragoon:** podcast scriptwriting asks the model for a JSON-schema response (with a plain-JSON fallback). llama.cpp's OpenAI-compatible endpoint is a known-good target for that; frank-dragoon's halogen runtime has **unverified** structured-output behaviour, so it is the unproven alternative, not the fallback. `ESPERANTO_LLM_TIMEOUT=180` (the app's own default) covers an outline or transcript call on zealot comfortably; upstream's note is to keep it under 600 so a slow call fails with a clear error instead of a UI timeout.

@@ -0,0 +1,261 @@
+---
+type: reference
+description: "How a frank-tts voice pack is built on Dankclaw: the three files every pack must carry, the 10-second source-material gate scripts/build-voice-pack.sh enforces, how to add a fourth voice, and what to do when a pinned engine bump changes the extractor's output sizes."
+tags:
+  - dankclaw
+  - frank-tts
+  - voices
+  - tts
+timestamp: 2026-10-18
+---
+
+# Voice Packs
+
+A **voice pack** is the unit of identity for **frank-tts**: one directory under
+`/home/dank/voices`, named by the voice, carrying the reference audio that makes
+the name real plus the pinned engine's own speaker artifacts and a provenance
+record. `voice=narrator1` on `POST /v1/audio/speech` resolves to
+`/home/dank/voices/narrator1/reference.wav` and to nothing else — a name without
+that file is a 400 that lists the names that do exist, because a silent fallback
+voice is how a wrong-voice endpoint stays wrong for weeks.
+
+**Host:** Dankclaw (192.168.0.143) — **Pack root:** `/home/dank/voices`, host
+state that stays out of the repo, mounted read-only at `/voices` by the façade
+unit — **Builder:** `scripts/build-voice-pack.sh` with tunables in
+`scripts/voice-packs.env` — **Seam:** `tests/voice_pack_unit.bats` — **Engine:**
+arm A `qwentts.cpp`, decided in [[Local TTS and Voice Cloning]].
+
+Packs are **world-readable on purpose** (`drwxr-xr-x`, owner `dank`): the façade
+container runs as uid 10000 and reads the mount from outside its own uid map.
+
+## The required files
+
+| File | What it is | Who reads it |
+|------|------------|--------------|
+| `reference.wav` | the crop: 24 kHz mono `pcm_s16le`, **18–25 s** of clean single-speaker audio | the façade (it is the existence gate for the name) and the engine's boot warmer, which base64s it and registers the voice with no transcript |
+| `reference.spk` | the engine's x-vector: **8,192 B** = `enc_dim` 2048 × f32 | the engine, for the ICL/`--ref-spk` path |
+| `reference.rvq` | the engine's RVQ code stream: **5,456–6,864 B**, 16 codebooks × T frames packed at 11 bits = 22 B per 12.5 Hz frame | the engine, for the ICL/`--ref-rvq` path |
+| `manifest.json` | provenance: source path and sha256, crop start/end offsets, sample rate, duration, the tool and engine commit that made the artifacts, and the `voice` name | humans, and the builder itself on its second gate assertion |
+
+`qwen-codec.log` rides along with the extractor's own record of the run; the
+façade ignores anything it does not name and never deletes anything.
+
+Division of enforcement, which is deliberate and not a gap: the **façade** gates
+on `reference.wav` because that is the only engine-agnostic term (see the
+voice-pack law in `scripts/frank-tts.env`); the **builder** is what refuses to
+emit a pack without its engine artifacts; the **engine** registers a voice from
+the WAV alone because its own `POST /v1/audio/voices` refuses a lone embedding —
+it wants `wav_b64` or **both** `spk_b64` and `rvq_b64`. So the artifacts are in
+the pack to make ICL a per-voice opt-in, not to boot it.
+
+## How a pack is built
+
+```bash
+# everything except the extractor: gate, crop, probe, plan, the manifest it would write
+scripts/build-voice-pack.sh --dry-run narrator1 /home/dank/voices
+
+# the real thing, on the host that holds the engine build
+scripts/build-voice-pack.sh narrator1 /home/dank/voices
+```
+
+Crops come from `scripts/voice-packs.env` — per voice: source path, offset,
+duration, and the source's pinned sha256 — and any of them can be overridden on
+the command line (`--source`, `--offset`, `--duration`, `--sha256`, `--tool`).
+`--all` walks `VOICE_PACKS`. The builder assumes no GPU, no container, no fleet
+endpoint and no network: `ffmpeg` cuts the crop, the pinned extractor makes the
+artifacts, and both run `nice -n 19` so a build never competes with the text
+endpoints on that box.
+
+The extractor is `qwen-codec` in the `qwentts.cpp` tree at
+`VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT` (`5916bf7c79dbb4e66fc059cdc507a79a23a28bb4`). Its
+usage text, read out of that tree and not guessed:
+
+```
+Usage: qwen-codec --model <gguf> [-i <input>] [--talker <gguf>] [--format <fmt>]
+
+Required:
+  --model <gguf>          Codec GGUF (qwen-tokenizer-12hz-*.gguf)
+
+Optional:
+  --device <name>         Compute device: CUDA0, Vulkan0, MTL0, CPU...
+                          (default: best available)
+  -i <path>               Input. WAV -> encode, .rvq -> decode
+  --talker <gguf>         Talker GGUF (Base only). Encode also extracts the speaker
+                          embedding and writes it next to the .rvq as a .spk file
+  --format <fmt>          WAV output format: wav16, wav24, wav32 (default: wav16)
+
+Output is auto-named next to input : clip.wav -> clip.rvq, clip.rvq -> clip.wav.
+```
+
+Three consequences shape the builder. **There is no `-o`**, so the pack's WAV is
+staged under its final stem and the artifacts land beside it with nothing to
+rename. **`--talker` must be a _Base_ talker** — the customvoice and voicedesign
+GGUFs carry no speaker encoder and the tool says `has no speaker encoder (Base
+only)`. **Encode truncates to the hop boundary**, so the `.rvq` size is arithmetic,
+not chance: `22 × floor(samples / 1920)` bytes, which is where the recorded
+5,456–6,864 B window comes from and why the **effective crop window is
+19.84–25 s** even though the WAV law says 18–25 s. A crop shorter than that is
+refused before the extractor runs, with the number in the message.
+
+The build is staged and published, never assembled in place: `reference.wav` is
+the file the façade reads, so it moves into position **last**, after the
+artifacts and the manifest. A failed extractor therefore leaves a pack directory
+that is not a voice. Nothing is ever deleted — an existing pack is refused unless
+`--force`, and `--force` moves the whole old directory to
+`/home/dank/voices/.AGENTTRASH/<voice>-<UTC>/` and builds fresh beside it.
+
+Measured on the shipped `narrator1` crop (2026-10-18, `--dry-run` against the
+real source): 98.739–118.636 s → `955,378 B` of 24 kHz mono `pcm_s16le`, 19.897
+s, planned `.rvq` 5,456 B — the same byte counts the trial produced by hand, and
+the extractor itself costs 1.8–2.1 s and 1.3–1.5 GiB peak per voice.
+
+## The 10-second gate
+
+Project-wide source-material invariant: **the first 10 seconds of any sample
+file used to generate voices is forbidden material.** An offset that starts
+inside it is refused with exit 1 and a message that names the invariant, before
+a directory is created:
+
+```
+ERROR: source-material invariant violated: the crop must start past the first
+10 s of the source file, and 'narrator1' asks for 4.5 s into … — nothing was
+written.
+```
+
+The same gate is then asserted **from the manifest** that was just written —
+`.crop.offset_seconds >= .invariant.forbidden_source_seconds`, plus the recorded
+sha256 against the source it claims — so a pack cannot reach disk carrying a
+forbidden crop even if the offsets in the env file are edited into nonsense.
+`10` is not a knob: `scripts/voice-packs.env` carries the offsets, the sample
+rate, the windows and the engine facts, but the forbidden region is a constant in
+the builder. `tests/voice_pack_unit.bats` pins both halves (a refusal that
+creates nothing, and one legal crop that builds the whole pack) and applies the
+invariant to every crop in the tracked pack list.
+
+## Adding a fourth voice
+
+1. Pick the source file and hash it: `sha256sum /path/to/sample.wav`. A crop
+   offset is a claim about one exact file, so the digest goes in the env with it.
+2. Find a speech-dense stretch **past 10 s**. The trial's recipe, applied once:
+   `ffmpeg -ss 60 -t 600 -i SRC -af silencedetect=noise=-35dB:d=0.6 -f null -`,
+   build the runs of non-silence, keep runs ≥ 18 s, take the longest (earliest
+   on ties), and cap at 25 s. Aim for 20–25 s: shorter than 19.84 s and the
+   `.rvq` falls under the floor.
+3. Add the four lines to `scripts/voice-packs.env` and the name to
+   `VOICE_PACKS`:
+
+   ```
+   VOICE_PACKS="narrator1 narrator2 narrator3 narrator4"
+
+   VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR4_SOURCE=/home/dank/voice-sources/audiosample4.m4b
+   VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR4_OFFSET=142.31
+   VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR4_DURATION=24
+   VOICE_PACK_NARRATOR4_SHA256=<64 hex>
+   ```
+
+   The name must be lowercase `[a-z0-9._-]`: the façade matches the directory
+   name verbatim while `tts-server` lowercases names internally, so an uppercase
+   name would be reported one way by the façade and another by the engine. The
+   builder refuses one anyway.
+4. `scripts/build-voice-pack.sh --dry-run narrator4 /home/dank/voices`, read the
+   plan, then drop `--dry-run`.
+5. `./tests/run.sh` (the pack-list invariant test covers the new row for free).
+6. Register it with the running engine. The engine's voice registry is
+   memory-only and warm-on-boot, but a restart re-decodes **every** voice (6–8 s
+   each), so adding one pack uses the hook instead:
+
+   ```bash
+   podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh
+   curl -s localhost:7772/v1/audio/voices      # the façade's list, not the engine's
+   ```
+
+   The hook walks `/voices` and registers **every** pack that has a
+   `reference.wav`, on every run — the engine replaces a name it already holds
+   (`tools/tts-server.cpp:148` at the pinned commit: *"Re-registering a name
+   replaces the previous entry."*) — then synthesizes twice per voice and logs
+   `voice <name> cold=…ms warm=…ms` to the unit's journal. The two numbers should
+   be close; see law 1 of [[Frank TTS Engine]] for what they measure. The rootless
+   unit restart — `systemctl --user restart frank-tts-engine.service` — is for when
+   the unit or its env changed, not for a new pack.
+
+## When the extractor's output size changes on an engine bump
+
+The builder treats the two artifact sizes as properties of the pinned engine, so
+an engine bump that changes them **fails the build**: `reference.spk is N B,
+expected 8192 B` or `reference.rvq is N B, expected …`. That is the failure being
+loud, not a bug. Work through it in order:
+
+1. Re-read the tool's own numbers rather than trusting this page: `qwen-codec`
+   prints `SpeakerEncoder] Loaded: enc_dim=…` and `Pipeline] Ready: hop … , …
+   codebooks @ … Hz` on every run, and the pinned tree's
+   `tools/qwen-codec.cpp` documents the packing. `enc_dim × 4` is the `.spk`;
+   `codebooks × code_bits / 8` bytes per frame × frames is the `.rvq`.
+2. Decide whether the new number is intended. A changed `enc_dim` means the old
+   `.spk` files are unreadable by the new engine, so **every** pack must be
+   rebuilt, not just the failing one.
+3. Update the four arithmetic lines in `scripts/voice-packs.env`
+   (`VOICE_PACK_SPK_BYTES`, `VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MIN_BYTES`, `VOICE_PACK_RVQ_MAX_BYTES`,
+   and `VOICE_PACK_RVQ_BYTES_PER_FRAME` if the codebook packing changed) **and**
+   `VOICE_PACK_ENGINE_COMMIT`, `VOICE_PACK_TOOL`, `VOICE_PACK_CODEC_MODEL`,
+   `VOICE_PACK_TALKER_MODEL` to the new build. An env diff that moves the sizes
+   without moving the commit is the mistake to avoid.
+4. Rebuild all three packs with `--force` (the retired directories keep the old
+   bytes readable beside their replacements until a human clears them), then
+   re-run the warm hook: `podman exec frank-tts-engine /app/warm-voices.sh`. That
+   hook registers **every** pack it finds on every run, and the engine replaces a
+   name it already holds — `tools/tts-server.cpp:148` at the pinned commit says so
+   in its own words: *"Re-registering a name replaces the previous entry."* So the
+   rebuilt `reference.wav` is what the running engine speaks afterwards, and the
+   hook's cold/warm pass is what re-snapshots it. A restart
+   (`systemctl --user restart frank-tts-engine.service`) is what an ENGINE bump
+   needs — the registry is memory-only and lives in that process — and the unit
+   runs the same hook on every start anyway, so a restart is never worse, only
+   slower.
+5. `./tests/voice_pack_unit.bats` — the stub in that seam reproduces the packing
+   law, so it needs the same arithmetic update as the env file. The seam's
+   engine-bump test is exactly this scenario with a wrong `.spk` size, and its
+   assertion — no `reference.wav`, no manifest — is the property that matters.
+
+## Host state (census 2026-10-18, read-only)
+
+- `/home/dank/voices/` holds `narrator1`, `narrator2`, `narrator3`, each with
+  `reference.wav`, a `reference16k.wav`, and a `manifest.json` **in the trial's
+  own schema** (`kind: voice-reference-pack`, a silence-scan record). They carry
+  **no** `reference.spk` / `reference.rvq`: the trial's artifacts live in its own
+  work directory (`/home/dank/voice-audition/qwentts/voices/`, and only for
+  narrator1 and narrator2). The builder's first real run is therefore a
+  migration, and it should be a `--force` run per voice so the old directories
+  are retired rather than left half-updated.
+- The three source files (`/home/blank/audiosample.mp3`,
+  `audiosample2.m4b`, `audiosample3.m4b`, digests pinned in
+  `scripts/voice-packs.env`) live on the workstation, not on Dankclaw; the
+  builder reads them from `$VOICE_PACK_SOURCE_DIR=/home/dank/voice-sources`, so
+  they have to be copied there once before a build.
+- `VOICE_PACK_TOOL` points at the trial's build tree
+  (`/home/dank/voice-audition/qwentts/qwentts.cpp/build/qwen-codec`, checked out
+  at exactly `5916bf7c`), and the two GGUFs at
+  `/home/dank/models/Qwen3-TTS-GGUF/`, which is where the engine slice's
+  download script puts them — that directory does not exist yet, so until it
+  does the models have to come from the trial's `models/` directory.
+- Nothing is deployed: nothing listens on 7772 or 8880 today, so building packs
+  is possible on that host while serving them is not.
+
+## Known gaps, on purpose
+
+- **No transcript in the manifest.** ICL wants a `ref_text` that matches the
+  crop, and the trial's machine transcripts came back wrong ("Demon Souls" for
+  *Dark Souls*). Transcribing on the host is not a fix, so the pack carries none
+  and the engine registers the WAV-only voice, which is what its boot warmer
+  does anyway. When ICL becomes a per-voice opt-in, the curated transcript
+  belongs in this manifest — a human-supplied field, not something the builder
+  can derive.
+- **No 16 kHz variant.** The packs the trial left behind carry
+  `reference16k.wav` for the `llama-tts-cli` rollback engine; arm A is native
+  24 kHz, so the builder emits one reference. `--force` retires the whole
+  directory including that variant, so if the rollback engine is ever revived:
+  `ffmpeg -i reference.wav -ar 16000 -c:a pcm_s16le reference16k.wav`.
+- **No loudness pass.** The trial's pipeline also measured and normalised
+  (two-pass `loudnorm`, `astats`, `ebur128`, spectrograms) to a `-16 LUFS` spec.
+  None of that is in the pack law, which asks for 24 kHz mono inside the
+  duration window, so the builder does only that; a future engine that is
+  loudness-sensitive should get the pass as an explicit, documented step.
@@ -116,6 +116,34 @@ On a later ordinary deployment, a service remains pending only while its
 recorded revision differs from the checkout and the planner still finds a
 change in that service's inputs.

+## Locally built images
+
+`build_compose_image` in `scripts/deploy-remote.sh` builds the images that have
+no registry digest — `comfyui-rocm`, `franksdank/loki`, `franksdank/alloy` and
+the voice pair `franksdank/frank-tts` / `franksdank/frank-tts-engine` — and
+**skips** the build when a `cfhash` label on the installed image matches a hash
+it computes from the checkout now. That skip is what keeps the engine's
+ten-minute `git clone --recursive` off every re-deploy, so the rule has to be
+honest about what the image bakes:
+
+- The hash covers the `Containerfile` **plus the files its `COPY` lines pull
+  in**, named as `extra=(…)` in each case arm. Hashing the `Containerfile`
+  alone was wrong in practice: editing `dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py` or
+  `tts-engine-warm.sh` left the label matching, `podman build` never ran, and
+  the redeployed container still carried the previous code while `/health`
+  answered — invisible to every gate. Corrected 2026-10-18;
+  `tests/frank_tts_engine.bats` drives the function against a stub `podman`
+  (first deploy builds, unchanged tree does not, a `COPY`'d file rebuilds).
+- A base-image assumption is part of the image's identity too. The engine's
+  runtime stage creates its unprivileged user with `useradd`, not `adduser`,
+  because the pinned `ubuntu:24.04` base ships no `adduser` — checked by
+  running the command against the digest on 2026-10-18. That failure mode is a
+  build that dies at the `RUN` line, so it is loud, unlike the stale-hash one.
+
+Both engines keep serving during a rebuild: `build_compose_image` runs after
+`install_quadlet` only for the LLM-style handlers, and the voice deploy gates on
+recorded health rather than a fixed sleep — see [[Frank TTS Engine]].
+
 ## Manual recovery

 If the LLM handler fails after the target pull:
@@ -258,11 +258,17 @@ HTTP path at all — that is what the façade's CLI backend exists for.

 Four laws came out of the trial, each worth a line of configuration:

- **Boot-warm every voice.** The first request for a registered voice decodes
-  the whole reference to snapshot codec state: 6.2–8.0 s, first audio byte at
-  5,530 ms. Later requests restore that state in 0.5 ms. An engine unit must
-  run one throwaway synthesis per voice at start, or the first request of the
-  day pays five seconds.
+- **Boot-warm every voice.** The trial measured the first request for a
+  registered voice at 6.2–8.0 s (first audio byte 5,530 ms) and later requests
+  restoring the snapshot in 0.5 ms. **That ladder did not survive deployment:**
+  measured 2026-10-18 on the built container against an empty registry — register,
+  then time — the first synthesis of a freshly registered voice cost **1,883 ms**
+  against **1,226–1,283 ms** for the requests after it, and a ~110-word request
+  cost **9.4 s** then **9.8 s**, so request time tracks the audio generated rather
+  than snapshot state. What still holds is the reason to warm at all: the registry
+  is memory-only and re-registering does not warm, so an engine unit must run one
+  throwaway synthesis per voice at start. It buys registration and about 0.6 s,
+  not five seconds.
 - **Speaker artifacts are reusable and exact.** `qwen-codec` turns a reference
  WAV into `.spk` (8,192 B x-vector) + `.rvq` (5,456–6,864 B, 16 codebooks × T,
  11-bit packed) in 1.8–2.1 s at 1.3–1.5 GiB peak; replaying them yields a
@@ -322,9 +328,11 @@ a live stream mid-sentence.
 **Chosen: arm A, 1.7 B talker, resident `tts-server` in a `frank-tts-engine`
 container, with `TTS_BACKEND=llama-tts-cli` kept in the repo as the rollback.**
 Three consequences are configuration, not opinion: the unit **boot-warms every
-voice** (5.5 s cold first byte otherwise), it **does not pin a cpuset** casually
-(threads are `hardware_concurrency()/2`, no flag), and every pack registers with
-the **WAV** because the engine rejects a lone embedding.
+voice** — the registry is memory-only, so an unwarm'd name is a 400 and the first
+synthesis otherwise costs about 0.6 s more than the ones after it, as corrected
+above —, it **does not pin a cpuset** casually (threads are
+`hardware_concurrency()/2`, no flag), and every pack registers with the **WAV**
+because the engine rejects a lone embedding.

 Two follow-ups stay open on purpose, and neither blocks the deploy:

@@ -80,7 +80,9 @@ macOS mini) as quadlets inside its podman machine — not on Dankserver.
 - [[Seerr]] — unified *arr request manager (guard-chained; fronts FrankBook-Pro's stack)
 - [[Marreta]] — content-cleaning proxy (guard-chained; shares SearXNG's Gluetun egress)
 - [[Open Notebook]] — podcast generator (scripts by frank-zealot, voices by frank-tts); repo-owned config, not deployed
- [[Frank TTS Engine]] — the arm A TTS engine (`qwentts.cpp` resident `tts-server`, 1.7 B talker) behind frank-tts on a private bridge; repo-owned config, not deployed
+- [[Frank TTS Engine]] — the arm A TTS engine (`qwentts.cpp` resident `tts-server`, 1.7 B talker) behind frank-tts on a private bridge; deployed on Dankclaw, CPU-only, publishes no port by design
+- [[Frank TTS]] — the 7772 cloned-voice endpoint consumers address: voice naming, pack layout, why the upstream is a container name; deployed, and it is the harness `speech` role
+- [[Voice Packs]] — how a frank-tts voice is built: reference.wav + the pinned engine's speaker artifacts, cut past the 10-second source-material gate

 ## Infrastructure

@@ -2490,3 +2490,247 @@ every restart since the cutover.
  nothing and exposes no metrics, so there is nothing to probe, which is said out
  loud in the page rather than papered over. No ICL/`ref_text` work: the packs
  keep `reference.spk`/`reference.rvq` so it stays a per-voice opt-in.
+
+## 2026-10-18 — frank-tts: the 7772 endpoint gets its deploy wiring, and voice naming is written down
+
+- Stage 2 of the voice stack: the **façade** in front of the engine is now a
+  deployable service too. Nothing deployed, no host touched. Runbook:
+  [[Frank TTS]].
+- **Two attached networks, in a meaningful order.** `dankclaw_default` first — it
+  owns the default route and is where consumers live (open-notebook dials
+  `http://frank-tts:7772/v1` by container name) — then the voice pair's private
+  bridge. `scripts/frank-tts.env`'s `TTS_UPSTREAM` moves from
+  `host.containers.internal:8880` to `http://frank-tts-engine:8880`, which is the
+  actual fix for a shape that could never have worked: a bridge container cannot
+  reach a host-loopback bind, and the engine publishes nothing.
+- **`Wants=` + `After=` on the engine, never `Requires=`:** the façade still
+  carries the `llama-tts-cli` rollback backend, which needs no upstream, so an
+  engine that will not boot must delay this endpoint, not take it down.
+- The façade handler installs the **engine's** quadlet pair as well. Not tidiness:
+  with a referenced `Network=` file absent, the v1 Quadlet generator produces no
+  container unit at all, and `--only frank-tts` has no other way to obtain it. It
+  also `mkdir -p /home/dank/voices` as the deploy user, because rootless podman
+  auto-creates a missing bind source **root-owned** and the endpoint then reports
+  "no voices" instead of an error.
+- **A voice is a lowercase directory name.** `^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9._-]*$`, ≤ 64 chars,
+  no slash/`..`/space. The shape is the intersection of two rules that do not
+  agree: `app.py` would accept mixed case, `tts-server` lowercases names — so a
+  pack named `Narrator1` resolves through the façade and not through the engine,
+  and the boot warmer refuses such a directory loudly. `narrator1/2/3` are
+  load-bearing for open-notebook, and `frank-tts-add-cloned-voice` is the skill
+  that walks the pack → register → warm → prove-a-second-request flow.
+- Registered everywhere the open-notebook entry named as law (planner order puts
+  the engine before the façade, so a warm registry precedes the first synthesis),
+  plus the homepage card — `wip: down` and hidden, because nothing listens on
+  7772 yet.
+- **No Prometheus job, on purpose.** The façade exports no `/metrics`, Prometheus 3
+  refuses HTML/JSON content types (the `comfyui` and `services` probes are
+  documented down for exactly that), and `LlmEndpointDown` is scoped
+  `up{job=~"frank-.*"}` — so a `/health` scrape would page on Signal every few
+  minutes for a healthy endpoint. That is the frank-archon never-green lesson
+  pointed the other way, and it is written in the page instead of being quietly
+  ignored.
+- Tests added to the voice seam: the generator's own rendering of the pair (both
+  attachments, first-network order, one publish, Wants-not-Requires), the
+  env-file upstream checked as a **network join** rather than a string
+  comparison, planner separation and order, the façade handler's steps, the
+  homepage card's gating, and routing that selects both seams for either
+  deployable's paths.
+
+## 2026-10-18 — voice-pack builder: the 10-second source-material gate becomes code
+
+- Third slice of the voice stack (after the façade and the engine decision):
+  `scripts/build-voice-pack.sh` turns a source recording plus a crop offset into
+  a deployable pack — `reference.wav` (24 kHz mono `pcm_s16le`, 18–25 s), the
+  engine's own `reference.spk` (8,192 B) + `reference.rvq` (5,456–6,864 B) made
+  from it, and `manifest.json` provenance. Tracked tunables in
+  `scripts/voice-packs.env`: pack list, per-voice source/offset/duration/pinned
+  source sha256, extractor path and engine commit, artifact arithmetic. New runbook
+  [[Voice Packs]].
+- **The gate is the product.** The project-wide invariant — no voice material
+  from the first 10 s of a sample file — had only ever been a sentence in
+  `scripts/frank-tts.env`. An offset inside it now exits 1 before a directory is
+  created, and the same assertion runs again against the manifest that was just
+  written, next to the recorded sha256, so a pack cannot carry a forbidden crop
+  even if the env file is edited into nonsense. `10` stays a constant in the
+  builder; the env file carries offsets, never the law.
+- **The extractor's contract was read, not guessed:** `qwen-codec` in qwentts.cpp
+  `5916bf7c` takes `--model <codec gguf> --talker <base talker gguf> -i <wav>`
+  with an optional `--device`, has **no `-o`** and names both artifacts next to
+  the input with the extension swapped. So the WAV is staged under its final stem
+  and `reference.wav` — the file the façade gates on — is moved into place
+  **last**, after the artifacts and the manifest: a failed extractor leaves a
+  directory that is not a voice. `--force` retires an existing pack whole to
+  `.AGENTTRASH/` instead of touching bytes; nothing in this script deletes.
+- Sizes are arithmetic, so they are checked: 16 codebooks × 11 bits = 22 B per
+  12.5 Hz frame (`22 × floor(samples/1920)`) and `enc_dim 2048 × f32` = 8,192 B.
+  That makes the **effective crop window 19.84–25 s**, narrower than the WAV
+  law's 18–25 s, and a too-short crop is refused before the extractor runs. An
+  engine bump that changes either number fails the build by design; the bump
+  procedure is in [[Voice Packs]].
+- Verified against reality, not against the model: the pinned `narrator1` crop
+  (98.739–118.636 s of `audiosample.mp3`, sha256 `2299510…`) comes out of a
+  `--dry-run` at 955,378 B / 19.897 s with 5,456 B of `.rvq` planned — byte-for-byte
+  the trial's hand-cut numbers — and all three pinned source digests match the
+  files on disk.
+- Seam: `tests/voice_pack_unit.bats` (13 tests) — refusal inside the forbidden
+  region creates nothing, a legal crop builds the whole pack, `ffprobe` on the
+  generated reference, manifest round-trip through `jq` with a sha that matches
+  the source, re-run-without-`--force` leaves every byte alone, `--force` retires
+  rather than deletes, `--dry-run` needs no extractor, a wrong-sized artifact
+  from a bumped engine cannot publish a voice, and every crop in the tracked pack
+  list clears the invariant. `qwen-codec` is stood in by a stub with the real
+  tool's I/O shape, so no engine, no GPU, no network, no fleet host. Suite green:
+  **416/416** (`./tests/run.sh`, wall 77 s) — 403 before this branch.
+- Deliberately NOT done: no transcript in the manifest (ICL wants a curated
+  `ref_text`; the trial's machine transcripts were wrong, and the engine
+  registers WAV-only voices anyway), no 16 kHz variant (arm A is native 24 kHz),
+  no loudness pass (not in the pack law), and no pack built on the host — the
+  three sources still live on the workstation and the engine GGUFs have not been
+  fetched to `/home/dank/models/Qwen3-TTS-GGUF` yet, so the first real run is a
+  host step.
+
+## 2026-10-18 — voice stack audit: three faults that no gate could see
+
+- The voice stack had never been run end to end — no image built, nothing on
+  7772 — so the whole path was audited as static code against the tools it
+  calls, and three faults came out of it. All three are the same species: a
+  step that **reports success while doing nothing**.
+- **The build would not have happened.** `Containerfile.engine` created its
+  unprivileged user with `adduser`; the pinned ubuntu:24.04 base has no
+  `adduser` at all. Proven in the base on Dankclaw rather than argued from
+  memory: `command -v adduser` prints nothing, and the replacement line
+  `useradd --system --uid 10000 --home-dir /app --shell /usr/sbin/nologin tts`
+  answers `uid=10000(tts) gid=999(tts)`. Its `SYS_UID_MAX` warning is cosmetic
+  and is the price of matching the façade's uid, so the comment says that
+  before someone "fixes" it by dropping `--system`.
+- **The warm pass would not have warmed.** The unit hands its env file to podman
+  via `--env-file`, which performs no shell parsing and takes the literal
+  remainder of the line, while `source` strips one quoting layer. `WARM_TEXT`
+  therefore reached the container with its quotes, the hook interpolated them
+  into the synthesis body, the JSON was invalid, and every voice would log
+  "registered, but the warm synthesis failed" beside an `active` unit. Fixed in
+  the hook — strip exactly one matched pair, only when the inner content also
+  carries a quote or backslash, then JSON-escape — and the seam now reads
+  `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env` **both** ways and asserts the engine gets the
+  same sentence in both shapes. The bug survived the first deploy precisely
+  because every existing test used `source`.
+- **A rebuilt image would not have been rebuilt.** `build_compose_image` skips
+  `podman build` on a matching `cfhash` label, and that hash covered the
+  `Containerfile` alone — so editing `app.py` or `tts-engine-warm.sh` (both
+  `COPY`'d) skipped the build, the deploy reported success, `/health` answered,
+  and the container served old code. Each case arm now names the files its
+  `Containerfile` copies and hashes them with it; comfyui/loki/alloy have no
+  extras, so their labels are byte-unchanged and they do not rebuild here.
+- Tests as behaviour, not as greps: the new seam extracts the real
+  `build_compose_image` from the deployer and drives it against a stub `podman`
+  that replays per-image label state, asserting the observable question — did
+  the deploy ask podman to build, or did it skip? — through build, skip,
+  engine-hook-edit-rebuilds-engine-only, and `app.py`-rebuilds-the-façade.
+  Reverting `scripts/deploy-remote.sh` turns it red at the warm-hook step, which
+  is the fault being prevented. Suite green: **443/443** (`./tests/run.sh`,
+  wall 110 s); each fix commit was left green on its own so the branch bisects.
+- Docs carry the lessons where an operator will hit them: a **Locally built
+  images** section in [[deployment]], two new troubleshooting lines in
+  [[Frank TTS Engine]] (all-voices-cold = quoted `WARM_TEXT`; façade 502 beside
+  200 = model loaded ≠ voices registered), and `Voice Packs.md` step 4
+  corrected — the warm hook re-registers **every** pack on every run, because
+  the engine replaces a name it already holds (`tools/tts-server.cpp:148` at
+  the pinned commit: *"Re-registering a name replaces the previous entry."*),
+  so a restart is what an engine bump needs and not what a rebuilt pack needs.
+- Opened as PR **#14** against `main`. Deliberately NOT done: no deploy (the
+  first `--service frank-tts-engine` run is a ~10-minute recursive source clone
+  and a new unit on a host that serves people — Frank's call), no voice pack
+  built on the host, no Playwright run (this branch publishes no host port and
+  touches no vhost), and Gitea **#2** phase 1 stays open until 7772 answers.
+
+## 2026-10-18 — frank-tts-engine deployed: it builds, it serves, and the warm hook died on the kernel's argument cap
+
+- Merged as **#14** (`747c665`) and deployed `--service frank-tts-engine`. The
+  payload took 18 s to fetch for the 1.4 GiB pair (byte count + Hub LFS sha256,
+  `--verify-only` OK), and the image built clean — the first real proof of the
+  `useradd` fix: `STEP 3/13: RUN useradd --system --uid 10000 …` passed with only
+  the documented cosmetic `SYS_UID_MAX` warning, and the unit was `healthy` after
+  31 s.
+- Then the deploy reported `0 voice(s) warm`:
+  `/app/warm-voices.sh: line 152: /usr/bin/curl: Argument list too long`. The hook
+  handed the registration body to curl as ONE argument; the kernel caps a single
+  argument at 131,072 bytes (`MAX_ARG_STRLEN`) and a shipped 955 KB
+  `reference.wav` base64's to about 1.27 MB, so curl never executed and the hook
+  logged that as "HTTP no response". Fourth silent fault of the voice stack, same
+  species as the other three: `/health` stayed green throughout.
+- Fix: the body goes to a `mktemp` file and curl gets `@file`. The regression test
+  is the honest shape — the seam's stub engine is a real listener, `curl` is the
+  real binary, the fixture pack is 300 KB — so it fails with the same kernel error
+  the host produced (proved red first, green after). Every shipped pack sits well
+  over the ~96 KB cliff, so no small fixture could ever have seen this.
+- Live proof on the deployed container with the three real packs:
+  `narrator1 cold=1175ms warm=1874ms`, `narrator2 1373/1892`, `narrator3
+  1816/1487`, exit 0, 15.2 s for the whole pass.
+- **A trial law did not survive deployment.** Against an empty registry —
+  register only, then time — the FIRST synthesis of a freshly registered voice
+  cost **1 883 ms**, the next two **1 283** and **1 226 ms**; a ~110-word request
+  cost **9.4 s** then **9.8 s**. The trial's 6.2–8.0 s cold / 0.5 ms restore
+  ladder, which the warmer's own header repeated, is retired: warming buys
+  registration — mandatory, because the registry is memory-only — plus about
+  **0.6 s**. Corrected in [[Frank TTS Engine]] law 1 and its troubleshooting
+  table, in [[Local TTS and Voice Cloning]], and in [[Voice Packs]].
+- Host state, honestly: the engine is `active` with three voices warm, but the hook
+  fix is not in the image yet, so the next restart re-breaks it until this branch
+  is merged and re-deployed. `frank-tts` (the 7772 façade) is still undeployed.
+- Deliberately NOT done in this window: the `frank-tts` deploy, any Prometheus
+  probe for the voice pair (neither container exposes `/metrics`; the blackbox
+  question is still open), and the podcast render — open-notebook is on `main` but
+  not installed.
+
+- Sweep afterwards: the retired ladder still lived in six places the first pass
+  missed — both quadlet files, `scripts/frank-tts-engine.env`,
+  `scripts/frank-tts.env`, the [[Frank TTS]] troubleshooting row, the research
+  brief's consequences paragraph, and one test comment. All re-keyed to the
+  measured claim: about **0.6 s**, and the 400-for-every-name reason the pages
+  should have led with. The trial entry above is left as written — a dated worklog
+  entry is a record — and this line is the correction that points at it.
+
+## 2026-10-18 — 7772 is live and the harness speaks through it
+
+- Merged **#15** (`0315a62`, the warmer's argument-cap fix) and **#16**
+  (`d2ce669`, the comment sweep), then deployed both voice services in order:
+  `--service frank-tts-engine` (image rebuilt from the fixed warmer, unit
+  `active`, zero drop-ins, warm pass in the unit's own start — `narrator1
+  cold=1542ms warm=1709ms`, `narrator2 1329/1405`, `narrator3 1451/1394`, `3
+  voice(s) registered and warm`) and `--service frank-tts`. The Playwright gate
+  ran at the end of each deploy: 33/33 twice.
+- Deployed-state proof from a LAN client: `/health` → `omni-http` with all three
+  voices; the same sentence in `narrator1` and `narrator2` came back with
+  **different sha256** and different RMS (4.24 s, 24 kHz mono PCM16), so the name
+  actually selects a voice. Engine-side ledger for the harness request:
+  `TTFA 67.5 ms`, `Total 2158.8 ms`, `audio 3.76 s, RTF 0.574`.
+- **The harness `speech` role moved off Kokoro**: `config.yml`
+  `modelRoles.speech: frank-tts (dankclaw)/frank-tts`. No voice key moves with it.
+  The bundle is unambiguous: the speech device forwards the call's `voice_id` and
+  nothing else, `tts.localVoice` belongs to the local backend (it is what answered
+  in the control test), and `speech.voice` is the TUI's speak-aloud enum.
+- Two harness laws learned by breaking it first (both now on [[Frank TTS]]): an
+  explicit speech role has **no fallback candidate**, so a dead endpoint errors
+  instead of degrading; and `models.yml` loads at process start while
+  `config.yml` is read live, so a session older than the `frank-tts` row fails
+  exactly like a dead endpoint. Fresh-process proof in the same minute:
+  `Saved 180524 bytes (model=frank-tts (dankclaw)/frank-tts, voice=narrator1)`
+  with the matching façade log line `speech voice=narrator1 format=wav chars=51
+  -> 180524 bytes`. This window's own session is that stale case and knows it.
+- Status sweep, because six pages still said the endpoint did not exist: both
+  vault descriptions, the two `index.md` bullets, the Open Notebook blocker (the
+  voice leg works; open-notebook itself is what is missing), the engine page's
+  "Deploy order — nothing below has been run" is now a **Deploy record**, and the
+  homepage card lost `wip: down` so the admin panel probes 7772 for real.
+- Corrected the same evening, by breaking it in a restarted session: a harness
+  call that names no voice reaches 7772 with **no `voice` key at all** — `400
+  unknown voice None; available voices: narrator1, narrator2, narrator3` —
+  because no setting feeds one. The earlier `Saved 180524 bytes
+  (voice=narrator1)` succeeded only because that run was *told* to pass
+  `voice_id`. The endpoint therefore grew `DEFAULT_VOICE` (its own PR): a
+  voice-less request speaks the declared pack and the journal line carries
+  `(default)`, while an unknown name still 400s with the list. Reverting the role
+  to Kokoro is one key, not two, and `speech.voice: narrator1` — briefly recorded
+  above as wiring — went back to `am_fenrir`: that key is the vocalizer's Kokoro
+  enum, so a pack name there breaks speak-aloud and does nothing for synthesis.
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 96 96"><polygon points="48,6 86,27 86,69 48,90 10,69 10,27" fill="#101a12" stroke="#7ee787" stroke-width="3"/><text x="48" y="60" font-family="monospace" font-size="30" font-weight="bold" fill="#7ee787" text-anchor="middle">FT</text></svg>
@@ -536,5 +536,18 @@
    "wip": false,
    "showLink": true,
    "art": "/img/apps/mono-cu.svg"
+  },
+  {
+    "name": "frank-tts",
+    "category": "admin",
+    "section": "AI",
+    "description": "The fleet's cloned-voice speech endpoint: POST /v1/audio/speech with voice=<name>, audio back in that voice. Published on 7772; the engine behind it (frank-tts-engine) is unpublished on purpose. It is also the harness speech role.",
+    "url": "",
+    "docs": "",
+    "probe": "127.0.0.1:7772",
+    "method": "http",
+    "wip": false,
+    "showLink": false,
+    "art": "/img/apps/mono-ft.svg"
  }
 ]
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@ load helpers

 UNIT="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container"
 NETF="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network"
+# The façade this engine serves: its wiring is tested here because the bridge
+# both units attach to is what makes the pair one deployable shape.
+FACADE="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts.container"
+FACADE_ENV="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/frank-tts.env"
 CF="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile.engine"
 START="$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-start.sh"
 ENVF="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/frank-tts-engine.env"
@@ -184,19 +188,34 @@ quadlet_generator() {
    return 1
 }

-# render_units — run the generator in a throwaway HOME over a copy of the two
-# source files and print everything it emits. --dryrun prints instead of
-# writing, so this neither contacts the podman daemon nor creates a network.
+# render_units — run the generator in a throwaway HOME over a copy of the voice
+# stack's source files and print everything it emits. Both units are rendered
+# together on purpose: the façade references the engine's .network, and a
+# referenced file that is not in the directory makes the generator drop that
+# container unit outright — which is the failure this seam must be able to see.
+# --dryrun prints instead of writing, so this neither contacts the podman daemon
+# nor creates a network.
 render_units() {
    local gen home
    gen="$(quadlet_generator)" || { echo "no Quadlet generator on this box"; return 1; }
    home="$TEST_TMP/fakehome"
    mkdir -p "$home/.config/containers/systemd"
-    cp "$NETF" "$UNIT" "$home/.config/containers/systemd/"
+    cp "$NETF" "$UNIT" "$FACADE" "$home/.config/containers/systemd/"
    HOME="$home" "$gen" --user --dryrun > "$TEST_TMP/generated.txt" 2> "$TEST_TMP/generated.err"
    cat "$TEST_TMP/generated.txt"
 }

+# unit_block <name> — one unit's block from the last render_units output. The
+# end of the block is the next `---` marker: two units are rendered now, and a
+# slice that ran to the end of the output would read the façade's RestartSec
+# into the engine's assertions, which is exactly how a generator test starts
+# asserting the wrong container.
+unit_block() {
+    awk -v u="$1" 'index($0, "---" u "---") == 1 { f = 1; next }
+                  /^---/ { f = 0 }
+                  f' "$TEST_TMP/generated.txt"
+}
+
 # free_port — an address with nothing bound to it, for the tests that need the
 # warmer to be dialing before a listener exists.
 free_port() {
@@ -251,7 +270,7 @@ s.close()'
    # Boot persistence and self-healing, as the generator actually emits them —
    # and the warm hook: ExecStartPost must carry the `-` prefix, because
    # Restart=always plus a failing warmer is a crash loop on the endpoint.
-    unit="$(printf '%s\n' "$rendered" | sed -n '/^---frank-tts-engine.service---$/,$p')"
+    unit="$(unit_block frank-tts-engine.service)"
    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^Restart=always$'
    restart_sec="$(printf '%s' "$unit" | sed -nE 's/^RestartSec=([0-9]+)s?$/\1/p')"
    [ -n "$restart_sec" ] && [ "$restart_sec" -le 30 ]
@@ -266,12 +285,12 @@ s.close()'

@test "the generator renders the bridge creation command with the pinned subnet" {
    rendered="$(render_units)" || { echo "$rendered"; skip "no Quadlet generator here"; }
-    net="$(printf '%s\n' "$rendered" | sed -n '/^---frank-tts-engine-network.service---$/,$p')"
+    net="$(unit_block frank-tts-engine-network.service)"
    printf '%s' "$net" | grep -qE '^ExecStart=/usr/bin/podman network create --ignore --driver bridge --subnet 10\.89\.5\.0/24 --gateway 10\.89\.5\.1 systemd-frank-tts-engine$'
    # The container unit must be tied to the network unit, not merely mention it:
    # a referenced .network that the generator cannot find kills the container
    # unit outright, and an untied one starts the container before the bridge.
-    unit="$(printf '%s\n' "$rendered" | sed -n '/^---frank-tts-engine.service---$/,$p')"
+    unit="$(unit_block frank-tts-engine.service)"
    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^Requires=frank-tts-engine-network\.service$'
    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^After=frank-tts-engine-network\.service$'
 }
@@ -375,6 +394,82 @@ assert {s["response_format"] for s in speech} == {"wav"}, speech
 PY
 }

+@test "a reference clip too big for one argument still registers" {
+    # The kernel caps a SINGLE command-line string at 32 pages = 131,072 bytes
+    # (MAX_ARG_STRLEN), and a shipped reference clip base64's to about 1.27 MB —
+    # so a warmer that hands the registration body to curl as an argument dies
+    # before curl runs. That is exactly what the first real boot of 2026-10-18
+    # hit with the real packs: `/usr/bin/curl: Argument list too long`, then the
+    # misleading "registration failed (HTTP no response)" for all three voices.
+    # The stub engine is a real listener and curl is the real binary, so this
+    # test fails for the same kernel reason the host did.
+    start_engine_stub
+    local big="$TEST_TMP/bigvoices/bigvoice"
+    mkdir -p "$big"
+    head -c 300000 /dev/zero | tr '\0' 'A' > "$big/reference.wav"
+
+    run env ENGINE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:$STUB_PORT" VOICES_DIR="$TEST_TMP/bigvoices" \
+        bash "$WARM"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"voice bigvoice cold="*"ms warm="*"ms"* ]] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+
+    # And the audio that arrived is the audio that was on disk, whole.
+    python3 - "$TEST_TMP/journal.jsonl" "$big/reference.wav" <<'PY'
+import hashlib, json, sys
+entries = [json.loads(l) for l in open(sys.argv[1])]
+regs = [e for e in entries if e["path"] == "/v1/audio/voices"]
+assert len(regs) == 1, entries
+assert regs[0]["name"] == "bigvoice", regs[0]
+want = hashlib.sha256(open(sys.argv[2], "rb").read()).hexdigest()
+assert regs[0]["wav_sha256"] == want, (len(regs[0]["wav_sha256"]), want)
+PY
+}
+
+@test "the warm sentence survives both readers of the env file intact" {
+    # scripts/frank-tts-engine.env is read two ways and they disagree about
+    # quotes. bash (`set -a; source`, what the seams and a human do) strips the
+    # quotes around a value with spaces. podman's --env-file — how the unit really
+    # reads it — does NOT: measured 2026-10-18 against the image's pinned base,
+    # the value lands in the container WITH its quotes. Interpolated raw into the
+    # hook's JSON body that is `""Warm up…"",` — the engine answers 400, no voice
+    # warms, and the boot still reads healthy. So the hook unwraps one
+    # shell-style layer and then escapes, and BOTH shapes must arrive as the
+    # sentence the operator wrote.
+    start_engine_stub
+
+    # Shape A: what podman delivers for `WARM_TEXT="Warm up, one two three."`.
+    run env ENGINE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:$STUB_PORT" VOICES_DIR="$VOICES" \
+        WARM_TEXT='"Warm up, one two three."' bash "$WARM"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"voice narrator1 cold="*"ms warm="*"ms"* ]] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    python3 - "$TEST_TMP/journal.jsonl" <<'PY'
+import json, sys
+entries = [json.loads(l) for l in open(sys.argv[1])]
+assert not [e for e in entries if e.get("invalid_json")], entries
+speech = [e for e in entries if e["path"] == "/v1/audio/speech"]
+assert len(speech) == 2, entries
+assert {s["input"] for s in speech} == {"Warm up, one two three."}, speech
+PY
+
+    # Shape B: a value that starts AND ends with a quote but carries more quotes
+    # INSIDE — exactly the shape an unwrap rule must refuse, because peeling the
+    # outer pair would delete characters the operator wrote. It must arrive
+    # character for character (trailing quote included), which also proves the
+    # escaping does not mangle what it is protecting.
+    : > "$TEST_TMP/journal.jsonl"
+    run env ENGINE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:$STUB_PORT" VOICES_DIR="$VOICES" \
+        WARM_TEXT='"He said "hi"\ once"' bash "$WARM"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    python3 - "$TEST_TMP/journal.jsonl" <<'PY'
+import json, sys
+entries = [json.loads(l) for l in open(sys.argv[1])]
+assert not [e for e in entries if e.get("invalid_json")], entries
+speech = [e for e in entries if e["path"] == "/v1/audio/speech"]
+assert len(speech) == 2, entries
+assert {s["input"] for s in speech} == {'"He said "hi"\\ once"'}, speech
+PY
+}
+
@test "a directory without reference.wav is not a voice, and a mixed-case name is refused" {
    # `justamanifest` must be invisible; `Narrator2` must be loud. The engine
    # lowercases every voice name (tts_voice_name) while frank-tts matches the
@@ -415,8 +510,8 @@ PY
    # two GGUFs (1.2 GiB + 291 MB) are still being read and the HTTP thread has
    # not bound yet. The warmer is launched against an address with nothing on
    # it, the listener appears a beat later, and the requirement is that the
-    # warmer notices and does the work — an early exit here is the day's first
-    # caller paying 5.5 s of silence for a voice nobody warmed.
+    # warmer notices and does the work — an early exit leaves every voice
+    # unregistered, and the façade then answers 400 for all of them.
    port="$(free_port)"
    ( ENGINE_URL="http://127.0.0.1:$port" VOICES_DIR="$VOICES" HEALTH_WAIT=60 \
        bash "$WARM" > "$TEST_TMP/race.log" 2>&1; echo "$?" > "$TEST_TMP/race.rc" ) &
@@ -562,9 +657,11 @@ PY
 }

@test "the planner maps every engine path to frank-tts-engine, and nothing to dankserver" {
+    # Everything named after the engine, EXCEPT the bridge file: both units
+    # attach to it, so a subnet change is a change to two deployables and that
+    # pairing is asserted in the façade's planner test below.
    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths \
        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container \
-        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network \
        dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile.engine \
        dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-start.sh \
        scripts/frank-tts-engine.env \
@@ -654,3 +751,235 @@ PY
        fi
    done
 }
+
+@test "the generator puts the façade on both bridges and behind the engine" {
+    rendered="$(render_units)" || { echo "$rendered"; skip "no Quadlet generator here"; }
+    line="$(printf '%s\n' "$rendered" | grep -E '^ExecStart=/usr/bin/podman run .*--name frank-tts ')"
+    [ -n "$line" ] || { printf '%s\n' "$rendered"; false; }
+
+    # Two attachments, and the fleet-wide bridge FIRST: that is the network
+    # consumers address (open-notebook dials `http://frank-tts:7772/v1` by
+    # container name), so it owns the default route. The engine's private bridge
+    # is second and exists so the shim can resolve the engine at all.
+    [ "$(printf '%s' "$line" | grep -oE -- '--network [^ ]+' | head -1)" = "--network dankclaw_default" ]
+    printf '%s' "$line" | grep -qE -- '--network systemd-frank-tts-engine( |$)'
+    # Published exactly once, on the fleet port — and this is the only publish in
+    # the voice stack.
+    [ "$(printf '%s' "$line" | grep -oE -- '--publish [^ ]+' | wc -l)" = "1" ]
+    printf '%s' "$line" | grep -qE -- '--publish (\[::\]:)?7772:7772( |$)'
+
+    unit="$(unit_block frank-tts.service)"
+    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^Wants=frank-tts-engine\.service$'
+    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^After=.*frank-tts-engine\.service'
+    # Wants, never Requires: the CLI rollback backend needs no upstream, and an
+    # engine that will not start must not take this endpoint's unit down.
+    ! printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^Requires=frank-tts-engine\.service$'
+    # And it is tied to the bridge as well, or the container would be started
+    # before netavark had created the network it dials over.
+    printf '%s' "$unit" | grep -qE '^Requires=frank-tts-engine-network\.service$'
+}
+
+@test "the upstream the env file names is only resolvable on a network the unit joins" {
+    # The pair's one real wiring contract, checked as a join rather than as a
+    # string: take the hostname out of TTS_UPSTREAM the way the container will
+    # get it, and require the façade unit to attach to the Quadlet network file
+    # named after that hostname. A revert to host.containers.internal, or a unit
+    # that drops the second Network= line, breaks here — both mistakes leave the
+    # endpoint answering and every synthesis failing.
+    set -a
+    # shellcheck disable=SC1090
+    source "$FACADE_ENV"
+    set +a
+    host="${TTS_UPSTREAM#*://}"
+    host="${host%%:*}"
+    host="${host%%/*}"
+    [ -n "$host" ] || { echo "TTS_UPSTREAM names no host: $TTS_UPSTREAM"; false; }
+    [ "$host" != localhost ] || { echo "localhost is not reachable across netns"; false; }
+    if ! grep -qE "^Network=${host}\.network$" "$FACADE"; then
+        echo "frank-tts.container does not attach to ${host}.network"
+        false
+    fi
+    if ! [ -f "$REPO_ROOT/dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/${host}.network" ]; then
+        echo "no Quadlet network file for $host — the generator would drop the unit"
+        false
+    fi
+}
+
+@test "the planner keeps the two voice deployables separate and ordered" {
+    # `--only` on the façade must not drag the engine's rebuild along, and a
+    # bridge change must restart both: the network file is named after the engine
+    # unit only because install_quadlet copies `$unit.network` beside the unit.
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py
+    [ "$output" = "frank-tts" ]
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile
+    [ "$output" = "frank-tts" ]
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts.container
+    [ "$output" = "frank-tts" ]
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container
+    [ "$output" = "frank-tts-engine" ]
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.network
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -qx frank-tts
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -qx frank-tts-engine
+
+    # Order: dependency before consumer, so a full dankclaw deploy starts a warm
+    # engine and then the endpoint that forwards into it.
+    run python3 "$PLANNER" --target dankclaw --paths \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts.container \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts-engine.container
+    local e f
+    e="$(printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -n '^frank-tts-engine$' | cut -d: -f1)"
+    f="$(printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -n '^frank-tts$' | cut -d: -f1)"
+    [ -n "$e" ] && [ -n "$f" ] && [ "$e" -lt "$f" ]
+}
+
+@test "the façade handler builds its image, installs the bridge file, and gates on recorded health" {
+    grep -qF 'dankclaw:frank-tts|' "$REMOTE"
+    grep -qF 'dankclaw:frank-tts|' "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/deploy.sh"
+    grep -qF 'frank-tts) deploy_frank_tts ;;' "$REMOTE"
+    # build_compose_image's default arm returns 0 without building: an unlisted
+    # service means a unit whose Pull=never image was never made.
+    grep -qE '^\s+containerfile=dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile$' "$REMOTE"
+
+    handler="$(sed -n '/^deploy_frank_tts()/,/^}/p' "$REMOTE")"
+    [ -n "$handler" ] || { echo "no deploy_frank_tts handler"; false; }
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qF 'build_compose_image frank-tts'
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qF 'install_quadlet frank-tts dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet frank-tts'
+    # The engine's quadlet pair is installed by this handler too: with the
+    # referenced .network file missing the generator produces no façade unit at
+    # all, and `--only frank-tts` has no other way to get it onto the host.
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qF 'install_quadlet frank-tts-engine dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet frank-tts-engine'
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qE 'mkdir -p /home/dank/voices'
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qE 'systemctl --user restart frank-tts\.service'
+    printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qE 'wait_container_healthy frank-tts [0-9]+'
+    ! printf '%s' "$handler" | grep -qE '^[[:space:]]*systemctl --user enable'
+}
+
+@test "an image rebuild is triggered by every file the image bakes in" {
+    # build_compose_image skips `podman build` when the image's cfhash label
+    # matches a hash — the thing that keeps the engine's 10-minute source clone
+    # from running on every re-deploy. If that hash covers only the Containerfile,
+    # then editing app.py (COPY'd into the façade) or the warm hook (COPY'd into
+    # the engine) rebuilds NOTHING: the deploy reports success, /health answers,
+    # and the container is still running last week's code. Observable output, not
+    # a grep of the handler: did the deploy ask podman to build, or did it skip?
+    awk '/^build_compose_image\(\) \{/,/^\}/' "$REMOTE" > "$TEST_TMP/bci.sh"
+    [ -s "$TEST_TMP/bci.sh" ] || { echo "build_compose_image not extractable from $REMOTE"; false; }
+
+    repo="$TEST_TMP/repo"
+    mkdir -p "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice"
+    : > "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile"
+    : > "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/Containerfile.engine"
+    : > "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py"
+    : > "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-start.sh"
+    : > "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh"
+
+    # Stub podman: `image inspect` replays the label this stub stored on the last
+    # build of THAT image (nothing the first time), `build` records the tag and
+    # writes the label it was given. One state file per image, so the pair's two
+    # images cannot borrow each other's freshness.
+    mkdir -p "$TEST_TMP/bin" "$TEST_TMP/labels"
+    cat > "$TEST_TMP/bin/podman" <<'STUB'
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Image tags contain a slash (`franksdank/foo:latest`), so the state file name
+# flattens it — otherwise the write lands in a directory that does not exist and
+# every image looks permanently unbuilt.
+case "$1" in
+    image)      # invoked as `podman image inspect <image> --format …`, so $3 is the tag
+        f="$LABEL_DIR/${3//\//_}"
+        [[ -s "$f" ]] && { cat "$f"; exit 0; }
+        exit 1
+        ;;
+    build)
+        # Two passes: `podman build` puts `--label cfhash=…` BEFORE `-t <tag>`, so
+        # the tag is not known when the label argument goes by.
+        tag=""
+        label=""
+        for a in "$@"; do
+            case "$a" in
+                *:*) tag="$a" ;;
+                cfhash=*) label="${a#cfhash=}" ;;
+            esac
+        done
+        [[ -n "$label" ]] && printf '%s' "$label" > "$LABEL_DIR/${tag//\//_}"
+        printf 'BUILD %s\n' "$tag" >> "$BUILD_LOG"
+        ;;
+esac
+STUB
+    chmod +x "$TEST_TMP/bin/podman"
+    cat > "$TEST_TMP/drive.sh" <<'DRV'
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+set -euo pipefail
+source "$BCI"
+build_compose_image "$1"
+DRV
+    : > "$TEST_TMP/builds"
+    builds() { grep -cF "BUILD $1" "$TEST_TMP/builds"; }
+    drive() {
+        ( cd "$repo" && BCI="$TEST_TMP/bci.sh" PATH="$TEST_TMP/bin:$PATH" \
+            LABEL_DIR="$TEST_TMP/labels" BUILD_LOG="$TEST_TMP/builds" \
+            bash "$TEST_TMP/drive.sh" "$1" )
+    }
+
+    drive frank-tts-engine
+    [ "$(builds franksdank/frank-tts-engine:latest)" -eq 1 ] \
+        || { echo "the first deploy of an unbuilt image must build"; false; }
+    drive frank-tts-engine
+    [ "$(builds franksdank/frank-tts-engine:latest)" -eq 1 ] \
+        || { echo "an unchanged tree must not rebuild — that is the 10-minute clone"; false; }
+
+    printf '# the boot warmer grew a line\n' >> "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/tts-engine-warm.sh"
+    drive frank-tts-engine
+    [ "$(builds franksdank/frank-tts-engine:latest)" -eq 2 ] \
+        || { echo "editing a script the image COPYs must rebuild it"; false; }
+
+    drive frank-tts
+    [ "$(builds franksdank/frank-tts:latest)" -eq 1 ] || { echo "the façade must build once"; false; }
+    printf '# the shim grew a route\n' >> "$repo/dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py"
+    drive frank-tts
+    [ "$(builds franksdank/frank-tts:latest)" -eq 2 ] \
+        || { echo "editing app.py must rebuild the façade image"; false; }
+}
+
+@test "the voice stack's homepage state: one probed card for the pair, and no link" {
+    # The engine is not on the homepage and must not be: it publishes no port, so
+    # there is no address the checker could dial, and a card that can never be
+    # green is worse than no card. The façade carries the pair's signal — and
+    # since the 2026-10-18 deploy that signal is a real probe (`wip: false`), not
+    # a placeholder. It stays `showLink: false` and admin-only: an HTTP API has no
+    # page to open, and the checker counts ANY HTTP response as up, so the card is
+    # honest without a link and without a `/health` path in the probe.
+    python3 - "$REPO_ROOT" <<'PY'
+import json, os, sys
+root = sys.argv[1]
+cards = {c["name"]: c for c in json.load(open(f"{root}/shared/homepage/services.json"))}
+assert "frank-tts-engine" not in cards, \
+    "the engine publishes no port: a card for it could never be probed green"
+fts = cards["frank-tts"]
+assert fts["probe"] == "127.0.0.1:7772", fts["probe"]
+assert fts["wip"] is False, \
+    "the endpoint is deployed; a wip card would hide its real state: " + repr(fts.get("wip"))
+assert fts["showLink"] is False and fts["url"] == "", \
+    "an API endpoint has no UI to link to — it is a status card, not a tile"
+assert fts["category"] == "admin", \
+    "consumers dial this; it is not an app the user homepage should advertise"
+assert os.path.exists(f"{root}/shared/homepage{fts['art']}"), f"missing art {fts['art']}"
+PY
+}
+
+@test "either deployable's paths select both voice seams" {
+    # A change to the bridge or the env file can break the other half of the
+    # pair, and the seams are cheap; routing them together is what keeps a
+    # façade-only commit from landing without the engine's wiring tests.
+    run "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/test-changed.sh" --list --paths \
+        dankclaw/voiceservice/quadlet/frank-tts.container
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -qx "tests/frank_tts_unit.bats"
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -qx "tests/frank_tts_engine.bats"
+
+    run "$REPO_ROOT/scripts/test-changed.sh" --list --paths dankclaw/voiceservice/app.py
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ]
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | grep -qx "tests/frank_tts_unit.bats"
+}
@@ -0,0 +1,268 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bats
+# Seam: the voice-pack builder (scripts/build-voice-pack.sh).
+#
+# The contract this pins is the one frank-tts's packs live or die by. A crop is
+# only usable voice material if it starts PAST the first 10 seconds of the
+# source file — the project-wide source-material invariant — and this builder is
+# the thing that enforces it, because nothing downstream looks at offsets again.
+# A pack is three files plus provenance: reference.wav at 24 kHz mono inside the
+# 18-25 s window, the engine's own speaker artifacts beside it, and a
+# manifest.json whose sha256 still matches the bytes the crop came from. Builds
+# refuse to clobber what is already on disk, and --force retires rather than
+# deletes.
+#
+# No engine binary, no model, no GPU, no network and no fleet host: the crop is
+# cut from a locally generated tone and the pinned extractor is stood in by a
+# stub that mirrors the real tool's I/O shape (no -o flag: outputs named next to
+# the input with the extension swapped, at the sizes the codec's config
+# implies), which is how frank_tts_unit.bats drives its backends too.
+
+load helpers
+
+setup() {
+    BUILDER="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/build-voice-pack.sh"
+    ENV_FILE="$REPO_ROOT/scripts/voice-packs.env"
+    TEST_TMP="$(mktemp -d)"
+    PACKS="$TEST_TMP/packs"
+    mkdir -p "$PACKS"
+    STUB_ARGV="$TEST_TMP/stub-argv.tsv"
+    export STUB_ARGV
+
+    # Forty seconds of "recording": stereo 44.1 kHz, so a legal build has to
+    # downmix and resample just as it does on a real audiobook. Every crop this
+    # file takes starts at or past 12 s, well out of the forbidden region.
+    ffmpeg -v error -y -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=330:sample_rate=44100:duration=40" \
+        -ac 2 -c:a pcm_s16le "$TEST_TMP/source.wav"
+    SOURCE_SHA="$(sha256sum "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" | awk '{ print $1 }')"
+
+    write_stub_tool
+    # The shipped tunables file, then the three machine-local overrides that
+    # point the engine at the stub: the real env stays under test.
+    cat "$ENV_FILE" > "$TEST_TMP/env"
+    {
+        printf 'VOICE_PACK_DIR=%s\n' "$PACKS"
+        printf 'VOICE_PACK_TOOL=%s\n' "$TEST_TMP/qwen-codec"
+        printf 'VOICE_PACK_CODEC_MODEL=%s\n' "$TEST_TMP/codec.gguf"
+        printf 'VOICE_PACK_TALKER_MODEL=%s\n' "$TEST_TMP/talker.gguf"
+    } >> "$TEST_TMP/env"
+    printf 'stub-codec-weights\n' > "$TEST_TMP/codec.gguf"
+    printf 'stub-talker-weights\n' > "$TEST_TMP/talker.gguf"
+}
+
+teardown() {
+    rm -rf "$TEST_TMP"
+}
+
+# write_stub_tool — stand-in for qwen-codec. Records what it was handed and
+# writes <input-stem>.spk / <input-stem>.rvq, exactly where the real tool would.
+# STUB_SPK_BYTES lets one test be an engine that changed its x-vector size.
+write_stub_tool() {
+    cat > "$TEST_TMP/qwen-codec" <<'STUB'
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+set -euo pipefail
+input="" model="" talker=""
+while [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; do
+    case "$1" in
+        --model)  model="$2"; shift 2 ;;
+        --talker) talker="$2"; shift 2 ;;
+        --device) shift 2 ;;
+        -i)       input="$2"; shift 2 ;;
+        *)        shift ;;
+    esac
+done
+printf 'model=%s\ttalker=%s\tinput=%s\n' "$model" "$talker" "$input" >> "$STUB_ARGV"
+[ -n "$input" ] || exit 2
+[ -s "$model" ] || exit 3
+[ -s "$talker" ] || exit 4
+dur="$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=duration -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$input")"
+frames="$(awk -v d="$dur" 'BEGIN { printf "%d\n", int(int(d * 24000 + 0.5) / 1920) }')"
+head -c "${STUB_SPK_BYTES:-8192}" /dev/zero > "${input%.wav}.spk"
+head -c "$((22 * frames))" /dev/zero > "${input%.wav}.rvq"
+printf '[Stub] Wrote %s.rvq: %d packed bytes\n' "${input%.wav}" "$((22 * frames))" >&2
+STUB
+    chmod +x "$TEST_TMP/qwen-codec"
+}
+
+# build — a real (non-dry) run against the stub tool with the tone as source.
+build() {
+    local voice="$1"
+    shift
+    run "$BUILDER" --env "$TEST_TMP/env" \
+        --source "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" --sha256 "$SOURCE_SHA" "$@" "$voice" "$PACKS"
+}
+
+pack_files() {
+    ls "$PACKS/$1" 2>/dev/null | sort | tr '\n' ' '
+}
+
+@test "a crop offset inside the first ten seconds is refused and names the invariant" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 4.5 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"source-material invariant"* ]]
+    [[ "$output" == *"first 10 s"* ]]
+    # Refused before anything was created, not cleaned up afterwards.
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1" ]
+    [ ! -s "$STUB_ARGV" ]
+}
+
+@test "the identical crop at a legal offset builds the whole pack" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"CROP       12 s .. 32 s"* ]]
+    [[ "$output" == *"VOICE_PACK_BUILT narrator1 $PACKS/narrator1"* ]]
+    [ -f "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.wav" ]
+    [ -f "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.spk" ]
+    [ -f "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.rvq" ]
+    [ -f "$PACKS/narrator1/manifest.json" ]
+}
+
+@test "reference.wav comes out 24 kHz mono pcm inside the 18-25 s window" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    local wav="$PACKS/narrator1/reference.wav"
+    [ "$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=codec_name -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$wav")" = "pcm_s16le" ]
+    [ "$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=sample_rate -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$wav")" = "24000" ]
+    [ "$(ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 -show_entries stream=channels -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$wav")" = "1" ]
+    local dur
+    dur="$(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=nw=1:nk=1 "$wav")"
+    awk -v d="$dur" 'BEGIN { exit !(d >= 18 && d <= 25) }'
+}
+
+@test "the manifest round-trips through jq with offsets and a sha that matches the source" {
+    build narrator2 --offset 15 --duration 22.5
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    local manifest="$PACKS/narrator2/manifest.json"
+    jq -e '
+        .voice == "narrator2"
+        and (.crop.offset_seconds == 15)
+        and (.crop.end_seconds == 37.5)
+        and (.reference.sample_rate == 24000)
+        and (.reference.channels == 1)
+        and (.reference.duration_seconds >= 18 and .reference.duration_seconds <= 25)
+        and (.artifacts.engine_commit | test("^[0-9a-f]{40}$"))
+        and (.artifacts.produced == true)
+        and (.invariant.forbidden_source_seconds == 10)
+    ' "$manifest"
+    # The recorded hash is the source's hash, not a hash of something else.
+    [ "$(jq -r .source.sha256 "$manifest")" = "$(sha256sum "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" | awk '{ print $1 }')" ]
+    # The pack's provenance names the tool that made the artifacts and the files
+    # it wrote beside the WAV.
+    [ "$(jq -r .artifacts.tool "$manifest")" = "$TEST_TMP/qwen-codec" ]
+    grep -q "input=$PACKS/narrator2/staging-reference.wav" "$STUB_ARGV"
+}
+
+@test "a wrong pinned sha stops the build before a crop is cut" {
+    run "$BUILDER" --env "$TEST_TMP/env" --source "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" \
+        --sha256 "$(printf '0%.0s' {1..64})" --offset 12 --duration 20 narrator1 "$PACKS"
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ]
+    [[ "$output" == *"sha256"* ]]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1" ]
+}
+
+@test "a crop that runs off the end of the source is refused" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 30 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ]
+    [[ "$output" == *"crop would come out short"* ]]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1" ]
+}
+
+@test "a crop under the engine's artifact window is refused before the extractor runs" {
+    # 18.5 s is inside the reference window but packs to 22 * 231 = 5,082 B of
+    # .rvq, under the 5,456 B the pinned codec config produces — the builder
+    # says so rather than running an extractor that would emit it anyway.
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 18.5
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"5456"* ]]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1" ]
+    [ ! -s "$STUB_ARGV" ]
+}
+
+@test "an extractor whose artifact size changed does not get a published voice" {
+    # The engine-bump case: a 4,096 B x-vector is not the 8,192 B the pinned
+    # encoder emits, so the pack must not reach the state the shim reads.
+    export STUB_SPK_BYTES=4096
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ]
+    [[ "$output" == *"reference.spk"* ]]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.wav" ]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1/manifest.json" ]
+}
+
+@test "re-running without --force refuses and leaves every byte alone" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    sha256sum "$PACKS"/narrator1/* > "$TEST_TMP/before.sha"
+
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -ne 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"--force"* ]]
+    sha256sum -c --quiet "$TEST_TMP/before.sha"
+    [ "$(find "$PACKS" -name .AGENTTRASH -prune -o -type f -newer "$TEST_TMP/before.sha" -print | wc -l)" -eq 0 ]
+}
+
+@test "--force retires the previous pack instead of deleting anything" {
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    cp "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.wav" "$TEST_TMP/first-reference.wav"
+
+    build narrator1 --offset 12 --duration 20 --force
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"RETIRED"* ]]
+    # The old bytes survive, whole, under the trash directory beside the pack.
+    local retired
+    retired="$(find "$PACKS/.AGENTTRASH" -name reference.wav | head -n1)"
+    [ -n "$retired" ]
+    cmp "$retired" "$TEST_TMP/first-reference.wav"
+    [ -f "$PACKS/narrator1/reference.wav" ]
+}
+
+@test "--dry-run needs no extractor at all" {
+    # Everything up to the engine: the gate, the crop, the probe, the plan and
+    # the manifest it would write — with the tool path pointed at nothing.
+    run "$BUILDER" --env "$TEST_TMP/env" --tool "$TEST_TMP/no-such-tool" \
+        --source "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" --sha256 "$SOURCE_SHA" \
+        --offset 12 --duration 20 --dry-run narrator1 "$PACKS"
+    [ "$status" -eq 0 ] || { echo "$output"; false; }
+    [[ "$output" == *"not present"* ]]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/narrator1" ]
+    [ ! -s "$STUB_ARGV" ]
+    printf '%s\n' "$output" | awk '/^MANIFEST_BEGIN$/{p=1;next} /^MANIFEST_END$/{p=0} p' \
+        | jq -e '.voice == "narrator1" and .crop.offset_seconds == 12 and .artifacts.produced == false'
+}
+
+@test "a name the façade could not resolve is refused" {
+    # app.py matches the directory name verbatim while the engine lowercases
+    # names, and a slash would escape $VOICES_DIR: both are refused here, at the
+    # only moment anyone can still fix them.
+    for bad in 'Narrator1' '../evil' 'voice name'; do
+        run "$BUILDER" --env "$TEST_TMP/env" --source "$TEST_TMP/source.wav" \
+            --offset 12 --duration 20 "$bad" "$PACKS"
+        [ "$status" -ne 0 ] || { echo "accepted '$bad': $output"; false; }
+        [[ "$output" == *"voice name"* ]]
+    done
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/Narrator1" ]
+    [ ! -e "$PACKS/evil" ]
+}
+
+@test "every crop in the tracked pack list clears the invariant" {
+    # The law applied to the values the repo actually ships: no pack may be
+    # described by an offset inside the forbidden region, a length outside the
+    # reference window, or a source with no digest to verify it against.
+    set -a
+    # shellcheck disable=SC1090
+    source "$ENV_FILE"
+    set +a
+    local checked=0 pack upper
+    read -r -a packs <<<"$VOICE_PACKS"
+    for pack in "${packs[@]}"; do
+        upper="$(printf '%s' "$pack" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]')"
+        local offset_var="VOICE_PACK_${upper}_OFFSET" duration_var="VOICE_PACK_${upper}_DURATION"
+        local sha_var="VOICE_PACK_${upper}_SHA256" source_var="VOICE_PACK_${upper}_SOURCE"
+        [ -n "${!source_var:-}" ] || { echo "$pack has no source path"; false; }
+        printf '%s' "${!sha_var}" | grep -Eq '^[0-9a-f]{64}$' || { echo "$pack has no pinned sha256"; false; }
+        awk -v o="${!offset_var}" 'BEGIN { exit !(o >= 10) }' || { echo "$pack crops at ${!offset_var} s, inside the forbidden first 10 s"; false; }
+        awk -v d="${!duration_var}" 'BEGIN { exit !(d >= 18 && d <= 25) }' || { echo "$pack crops ${!duration_var} s, outside 18-25 s"; false; }
+        checked=$((checked + 1))
+    done
+    [ "$checked" -gt 0 ]
+}
				`@@ -0,0 +1 @@`
				`<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 96 96"><polygon points="48,6 86,27 86,69 48,90 10,69 10,27" fill="#101a12" stroke="#7ee787" stroke-width="3"/><text x="48" y="60" font-family="monospace" font-size="30" font-weight="bold" fill="#7ee787" text-anchor="middle">FT</text></svg>`