Wavecraft Dev Server

Status: ✅ Complete

A development server and desktop app demonstrating WebView ↔ Rust IPC communication for the Wavecraft plugin framework.

Features

✅ React 18 + TypeScript UI embedded in native window
✅ Bidirectional IPC with JSON-RPC 2.0 protocol
✅ Real-time parameter synchronization
✅ Atomic parameter storage (thread-safe)
✅ Static asset embedding (single binary)
✅ Cross-platform support (macOS, Windows, Linux)

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│   React UI (WebView)                │
│   - ParameterSlider components      │
│   - ParameterToggle components      │
│   - LatencyMonitor                  │
│   - @wavecraft/ipc library             │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │ JSON-RPC IPC
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐
│   Rust Backend                      │
│   - IpcHandler (bridge layer)       │
│   - AppState (atomic parameters)    │
│   - Asset embedding (include_dir!)  │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Build & Run

Prerequisites

Rust 1.70+ (2024 edition)
Node.js 18+ and npm
macOS, Windows, or Linux

Platform Support:

✅ macOS - Fully tested and supported (WKWebView)
⚠️ Windows - Theoretically supported via WebView2, not tested (no Windows dev machine)
⚠️ Linux - Theoretically supported via WebKitGTK, not tested (no Linux dev machine)

If you encounter platform-specific issues on Windows or Linux, please file an issue with details.

Build React UI

cd ui
npm install
npm run build

Build Dev Server App

cd engine
cargo build -p wavecraft-dev-server --release

Run

cargo run -p wavecraft-dev-server --release

Or run the binary directly:

./target/release/wavecraft-dev-server

CLI Options

wavecraft-dev-server --help              # Show help
wavecraft-dev-server --list-assets       # List embedded UI assets

Testing

Unit Tests

cargo test -p protocol                # Protocol types
cargo test -p bridge                  # IPC handler
cargo test -p wavecraft-dev-server    # App state & assets

Integration Tests

cargo test -p wavecraft-dev-server --test integration_test

Latency Benchmarks

cargo test -p wavecraft-dev-server --test latency_bench -- --nocapture

Results (on Apple Silicon):

p50: ~0.003 ms (handler only)
p95: ~0.003 ms (handler only)
p99: ~0.005 ms (handler only)
JSON parsing + handler p95: ~0.013 ms

Note: These are Rust-side only. WebView IPC adds ~1-5ms overhead depending on platform.

Project Structure

wavecraft/
├── engine/
│   └── crates/
│       ├── protocol/            # Shared IPC types
│       ├── bridge/              # IPC handler
│       └── wavecraft-dev-server/# WebView app
│           ├── src/
│           │   ├── app.rs          # AppState
│           │   ├── assets.rs       # Asset embedding
│           │   ├── webview.rs      # WebView setup
│           │   └── js/
│           │       └── ipc-primitives.js
│           └── tests/
│               ├── integration_test.rs
│               └── latency_bench.rs
└── ui/
    ├── src/
    │   ├── lib/wavecraft-ipc/     # IPC library
    │   │   ├── types.ts
    │   │   ├── IpcBridge.ts
    │   │   ├── ParameterClient.ts
    │   │   ├── hooks.ts
    │   │   └── index.ts
    │   ├── components/
    │   │   ├── ParameterSlider.tsx
    │   │   ├── ParameterToggle.tsx
    │   │   └── LatencyMonitor.tsx
    │   ├── App.tsx
    │   └── main.tsx
    ├── package.json
    ├── tsconfig.json
    └── vite.config.ts

IPC Protocol

Methods

Method	Params	Returns	Description
`getParameter`	`{id: string}`	`{id: string, value: number}`	Get parameter value
`setParameter`	`{id: string, value: number}`	`{}`	Set parameter value (normalized 0-1)
`getAllParameters`	-	`{parameters: ParameterInfo[]}`	Get all parameters
`ping`	-	`{pong: true}`	Test connectivity

Notifications

Event	Params	Description
`parameterChanged`	`{id: string, value: number}`	Parameter changed (e.g., from host automation)

Error Codes

-32700: Parse error
-32600: Invalid request
-32601: Method not found
-32602: Invalid params
-32603: Internal error
-32000: Parameter not found
-32001: Parameter out of range

Parameters

The POC simulates three parameters:

ID	Name	Type	Default	Unit
`gain`	Gain	Float	0.7	dB
`bypass`	Bypass	Bool	0.0	-
`mix`	Mix	Float	1.0	%

Development

Hot Reload (UI only)

cd ui
npm run dev

Then update webview.rs to load from http://localhost:5173 instead of wavecraft://localhost/index.html.

Type Safety

TypeScript types in ui/src/lib/wavecraft-ipc/types.ts must stay in sync with Rust types in engine/crates/protocol/src/ipc.rs.

Next Steps

This POC validates the architecture. Next milestones:

Milestone 3: Integrate WebView into nih-plug plugin editor
Milestone 4: Add SPSC ring buffers for audio metering
Milestone 5: Build real DSP effects

wavecraft-dev-server 0.11.0