Project status and handoff

Last updated: 2026-09-19 (documentation review; no new runtime qualification).

Reusable implementation, testing, device and deployment lessons are in ENGINEERING_LEARNINGS.md. September 12 test/install results below are historical evidence, not a September 19 health check.

Current direction

Keep Qwen 2.5. The user explicitly canceled the earlier request to switch to a ChatGPT subscription/device-token login. Do not revive that migration because an old saved goal mentions it. Current work is the native iOS UI/UX redesign and end-to-end qualification.

2026-09-12: the embedded music player was removed by user decision — the feature is gone from the app (Media tab, Sources/Media/, MediaPanelView, MediaAPI, MediaPlayerController, PinnedMediaResourceLoader, media tests, and the media_state control publish). The backend media API still exists and is untouched. The backend AAC compatibility patch (below) is now irrelevant to the iOS app but remains deployed.

The Nearlight native redesign is implemented across Talk, Activity, Settings, pickers, task details, and connection diagnostics. Current simulator qualification is green, and GPT-6 Astra's final blocker re-verification returned PASS. The final source also produced a signed generic-iOS build, and once the phone reconnected the final build was installed and launched on the paired iPhone. Hardware audio and interruption qualification remains open.

Completed work

Native interface and usability

The app now has native Talk and Activity tabs sharing one session; changing tabs never ends a conversation.
Implemented Astra's Nearlight direction: an adaptive plum/rosewood semantic palette, restrained rounded typography, shared spacing/radius/motion tokens, and the compact Lightwell aperture as the conversation state signature.
Rebuilt Talk around a clear pre-connection welcome, Voice/Type choice, explicit start/end controls, compact active status, microphone meter, persistent Type draft, and a dock that keeps primary actions reachable.
Reworked the transcript as a readable shared record with speaker/time metadata, live partials, copy/selection, explicit destructive confirmation, and measured follow-latest behavior. Restored history stays at the top; manual reading, selection, and VoiceOver row focus suspend following until Latest.
Made connection and ready-session microphone failures visible without discarding the real error. Permission denial exposes an iPhone Settings recovery action; Type mode remains available.
Reworked Settings around voice, mode, model, and connection. Server edits are validated and explicitly saved; normalization confirmation survives session replacement and clears on the next user edit.
Improved Activity hierarchy, active-count badge, empty state, state-specific rows, and task detail presentation.
Removed forced dark appearance; all redesigned surfaces support light/dark mode, Dynamic Type, Reduce Motion, increased contrast branches, and 44-point-or-larger interaction targets where applicable.

Functional fixes

Observed nested transcript, conversation-state, and task objects so asynchronous updates render.
Preserved latest-wins server replacement while keeping an open Settings navigation stack and its success feedback intact.
Preserved Type-mode microphone privacy, pending-message send gating, clean session teardown, transcript persistence/deduplication, and interruption ordering.
All media-related client behavior was removed with the music player on 2026-09-12.

Tests and tooling

Follow-up commits added the Lightwell app icon (7ac8a1c) and regenerated the project to include its asset-catalog resource phase (85169d6). The qualification results below predate those follow-ups; do not describe them as a fresh full run of the current HEAD.
Installed XcodeBuildMCP and its skills; used it for simulator build/run/test work.
The current combined simulator run passed 50 tests, 0 failures, with the opt-in live suite skipped once. Five offline UI scenarios cover recovery, settings validation/persistence and save feedback, transcript/task flows, restored-history reading position, and accessibility-size navigation.
A post-focus-change targeted restored-history UI regression passed independently.
DEBUG UI fixtures use isolated preferences; ordinary application preferences and the NAS are not modified by offline UI runs.
GPT-6 Astra completed the design specification and four verification rounds. Its final scoped review found B1–B3 resolved, N1/N2 preserved, and no concrete remaining release blocker. Accepted visual/adaptive/accessibility polish remains documented as debt, not as exhaustive WCAG or VoiceOver qualification.

Backend deployment and cross-repository dependency

SSH host: [email protected] (Unraid). App URL: https://192.168.86.2:9178.

voice image: hope-voice-api-voice:68f4c46-ios-audio, host networking, restart policy unless-stopped. Includes LiveKit, voice agent, token service, media API, and nginx.
LLM: qwen2.5-vl-3b through existing OpenWebUI at http://192.168.86.2:3005/api. Existing Azure speech configuration retained.
voice, open-webui, and local-vl-models were present and healthy when the user suspected deletion. Do not recreate healthy services unnecessarily.
Original library, certificates, and skills were retained under /mnt/user/dev/hope-voice-api; the dirty remote checkout was not overwritten.
Separate deployment source: /mnt/user/dev/hope-voice-deploy-68f4c46.
Stopped rollback container: voice-before-ios-audio.
Backend AAC conversion preserves original WebM files and serves cached AAC with byte-range support. Browser/raw requests retain their original behavior.

Important: the backend patch and its test are in a different local repository: /Users/shane/dev/hope-voice-api/web/media_server.py and /Users/shane/dev/hope-voice-api/tests/test_ios_audio.py. They were still uncommitted at the earlier deployment handoff; their current sibling-repository status has not been rechecked in this documentation update. Committing/pushing the iOS repository does not publish those files. The deployed image contains the patch, but a future backend CI rebuild can lose it unless it is committed and deployed through that repository's workflow. Inspect that workflow before pushing: it may replace the live container.

Launch configuration and rollback details: DEPLOYMENT.md. Do not copy credentials or .env contents into documentation or commits.

Verification performed

Project Voice.xcodeproj, scheme Voice_iOS, iPhone 17 Pro simulator AFDA137E-1657-428E-BF01-E5CD7989772C.

Current combined run: 50 passed, 0 failed, 1 live skip in 104.9 seconds. Result bundle: test_sim_2026-09-12T14-03-09-058Z_pid95846_2ca9da7e.xcresult.
Post-focus-change restored-history regression: 1 passed, 0 failed. Result bundle: test_sim_2026-09-12T14-05-21-070Z_pid98187_bd3e531a.xcresult.
A fresh isolated simulator launch showed restored history top-anchored with Latest visible; the UI regression then tapped Latest and verified the final event became visible.
Astra's targeted isolated runtime check verified a padded changed-address save stays in Settings, normalizes the field, shows its checkmark and confirmation, and clears both only after the next user edit. Final verdict: PASS.
iPhone 14 Pro Max BF93D35E-0853-5470-A125-6EB0DB3F17AB was paired, signed, installed, trusted, and launched successfully. The final Nearlight build (/tmp/voice-ios-device-derived/Build/Products/Debug-iphoneos/Voice.app, dev.shane.voice) was reinstalled and launched via devicectl after the phone reconnected. Free provisioning expires after seven days; reinstall to re-sign.
Historical live NAS runs verified Qwen replies, background task completion, and reconnect. Backend integration remains 16 passed, 7 skipped, 2 deselected.

Exact historical qualifications: VERIFICATION.md. Artifacts live on this Mac under the XcodeBuildMCP workspace, not in Git.

What remains, in order

Qualify real audio: microphone capture, TTS audibility, speaker/headphones, barge-in, Siri/phone interruptions, lock/background behavior, microphone-permission-denied fallback, and network-loss recovery. These require the user's speech/listening or a real interruption; simulator state tests do not prove them. Follow DEVICE_TESTING.md.
Broader live regression: exercise slow-network cancellation, network-loss recovery, repeated server replacement, and voice/model selection against the live agent.
Manual accessibility/visual qualification: inspect populated/error screens in light and dark mode, accessibility text sizes, narrow/landscape layouts, and a real VoiceOver focus session. Astra accepted the remaining presentation debt for this personal-app release; that is not proof of exhaustive conformance.
Publish the backend compatibility source safely in the sibling repository and ensure its normal deployment preserves mounts, certificates, and Qwen settings. This is lower priority because the iOS app no longer consumes the media API, but the deployed container still serves it for the web UI.

Repository handoff

The iOS work and this report belong to branch feat/ios-app, remote origin (https://git.srmr.xyz/snowspeeder/hope-voice-ios.git). Keep the Nearlight implementation, tests, physical-device notes, and this handoff together when committing. Check Git history and remote status for the final publish result.

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