Anabasis — Mastering Loudness Maximizer

Anabasis (by RollyTech) is a stereo mastering loudness maximizer: one large "Push" knob driving an adaptive chain of compression, clipping/saturation and true-peak limiting, with loudness-compensated monitoring so louder and better can be told apart honestly. It is the second product in the RollyTech line, alongside Anamorph (stereo width / stereo-field expander), and shares that product's frame layout, brand system and engineering standard.

Built with CMake + JUCE only — it configures and builds entirely from the command line on a headless Linux machine, no IDE.

Project status

• v0.1.0 CODE COMPLETE (2026-08-02, under the owner's blanket approval; what remains is the post-v0.1.0 human fine review — the brand pass, the DAW matrix audition and the listening pass over every constant marked ⊕) — a MILESTONE, not the current version: the tree has moved on through later rounds, CMakeLists.txt carries the version of record and HANDOVER.md's Release Status row carries whether anything has shipped. P0 closed on 2026-07-31 with the owner's sign-off of docs/DESIGN.md; the Accepted ADRs registered in docs/architecture/design-decisions/ADR_INDEX.md govern the implementation. No count is written here on purpose — the same rule the pluginval strictness follows, and for the same reason: this file is the first one a contributor opens, so it is the copy whose staleness costs most. Two numerals in this document disagreed with each other for exactly one round; the index is the registry. docs/HANDOVER.md carries the status of record.
• In the tree: CMakeLists.txt (ADR-0008's five-target graph) and src/ — the 50-parameter surface (49 at the P0 freeze; ADR-0019 added compStereoLink), the full §2 processing chain (EQ · glue compressor · ADAA clipper/saturation · true-peak lookahead limiter · oversampling to 16× · dither) behind the POD engine boundary on the constant 10 ms allowance, the §2.8 click-free transition layer, BS.1770-4 metering with the §2.7 loudness-compensated monitor, the §5.4 adaptive engine with Learn including the ADR-0014 frozen-trim restore, the P5 editor (Simple and Advanced views, meters, spectrum, curve display) and the P6 per-slot undo / 13-preset factory bank (Default + 12) / performance bench — verified by tests/ (1787 checks — AnabasisTests 439 + AnabasisStateTests 1348 — re-count from the suites' own output when editing, the same rule HANDOVER's status row carries — green on Linux, together with pluginval at the strictness .github/workflows/build.yml sets, in both modes ×3; see docs/TEST_REPORT.md for the measured DSP numbers — aliasing, latency, accuracy, each with the machine and method that produced it (constraint C2); it does NOT carry the suite COUNT, and this line used to imply it did. The count's home is docs/HANDOVER.md's Test Status row, re-counted from the suites' own printed output — and docs/policies/TESTING_POLICY.md for the gate, which is deliberately stated in one place).
• Decided and frozen from the first build: the JUCE pin (9.0.1 at commit e18f7f5…; 9.0.0 at f8f8864… until ADR-0028 moved it on 2026-08-16, ahead of Anamorph — which has since followed onto the same commit, so the two products are no longer split) and the plugin identity (RTec / Anbs / com.rollytech.anabasis) — both now written into CMakeLists.txt as ADR-0008 specifies.
• Still open — the JUCE licence tier (OQ-002, blocks distribution not development) and the remaining entries in docs/OPEN_QUESTIONS.md — which is the list of record, so this sentence cannot drift out of date. None of them may be guessed at. Resolved entries stay in that file's Resolved section; they are decisions, not choices to revisit.

Planned scope (see docs/DEVELOPMENT_BRIEF.md for the full specification)

• Signal chain (fixed for v1): Input Gain → EQ (pre by default) → Compressor → Clipper + Saturation → Limiter (lookahead + true peak) → Ceiling → Dither → Output.
• Simple mode: one large Loudness/Push knob plus Ceiling, Character and Tone, driven by an adaptive engine (short-term LUFS, crest factor, spectral tilt, transient density).
• Advanced mode: per-stage control over the same parameter model — switching modes must not change the sound.
• Metering: LUFS (momentary / short-term / integrated, BS.1770-4 gated), true peak (dBTP), PLR, gain-reduction history, input/output spectrum. (The brief's streaming-target lines were removed by owner directive 2026-08-05 — platforms normalise; a master is pushed against the ceiling, not a platform figure.)
• Formats: VST3 (all platforms), AU (macOS, for Logic Pro), Standalone (debugging). AAX is not supported.
• Platforms: Linux x86-64 (headless CI build), Windows x86-64, macOS universal (arm64 + x86_64). The Linux binary is built by a pinned Clang since 0.2.1 (ADR-0032) and carries a declared, gated ABI floor; scripts/check-linux-abi.py holds the numbers and the CI job asserts them on every push.

Requirements

• CMake ≥ 3.22, a C++23 compiler (GCC 13+, Clang 17+, MSVC 19.35+, AppleClang 15+ — ADR-0030), Ninja (recommended).
• JUCE 9.0.1, fetched automatically by CMake FetchContent and pinned to that tag's immutable commit SHA e18f7f506c0b96f2c738a0bcd7fe6467a5005ad8. OQ-001 pinned the revision the sibling product Anamorph pins, so both plugins share one framework baseline. ADR-0028 (2026-08-16) moved Anabasis to 9.0.1 ahead of the sibling; Anamorph has since followed, and as of 2026-08-30 both pin that same commit — so a JUCE-attributable behaviour difference between the two products is again impossible by construction. docs/policies/DEPENDENCY_POLICY.md carries the version-lock reasoning, the record of the divergence and its re-convergence, and what the next bump owes the family; changing the pin is an Architecture Review Gate item.
• Linux build deps install via scripts/setup-linux.sh. See docs/procedures/BUILD.md.

Quick start (headless Linux) — active from P1 onward

# 1. Install build dependencies (Ubuntu; safe to re-run)
scripts/setup-linux.sh

# 2. Configure + build (fetches the pinned JUCE commit via CMake FetchContent)
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release        # ...or: scripts/build.sh

# 3. Run the headless self-tests (DSP + state compatibility)
scripts/run-tests.sh

# 4. Validate the VST3 with pluginval, at the strictness CI ENFORCES.
#    Read out of the one place that holds it rather than pasted: the literal
#    here was `5`, and stayed 5 through two raises, under a comment claiming it
#    was current — so the front page told contributors to validate at a weaker
#    bar than the build actually requires. `docs/procedures/CI_CD.md` carries
#    this same snippet with the full reasoning (POSIX `sed`, not `grep -oP`,
#    which BSD grep rejects; the `^  ` anchor pins the match to the `env:`
#    assignment so the job steps' references cannot supply a second value).
STRICTNESS=$(sed -n 's/^  ANABASIS_PLUGINVAL_STRICTNESS:[[:space:]]*\([0-9][0-9]*\).*/\1/p' \
             .github/workflows/build.yml)
: "${STRICTNESS:?could not read ANABASIS_PLUGINVAL_STRICTNESS from build.yml}"
scripts/run-pluginval.sh "$STRICTNESS" deterministic
scripts/run-pluginval.sh "$STRICTNESS" randomise

To build without network (JUCE already on disk): cmake -B build -DANABASIS_JUCE_PATH=/path/to/JUCE ...

Documentation

The full technical documentation lives in docs/:

• Start here: docs/DEVELOPMENT_BRIEF.md (the product spec) · docs/architecture/design-decisions/ADR_INDEX.md (the binding decisions — read before writing code) · docs/DESIGN.md (the signed-off P0 design: architecture, the 49-parameter table, macro curves, wireframes) · docs/SOURCE_OF_TRUTH.md · docs/REPOSITORY_MAP.md · docs/OPEN_QUESTIONS.md
• Rules (binding): docs/policies/ — real-time audio, threading, DSP, mode/adaptation, compatibility, AI-agent, testing, release, dependency, code style
• Architecture & decisions: docs/architecture/ — the Accepted ADRs, enumerated in ADR_INDEX.md and nowhere else. This bullet used to spell the list out ("twelve Accepted ADRs: ADR-0001…0011 plus ADR-0012") and went stale the moment ADR-0013 and ADR-0014 were accepted, contradicting the status section of this same file two screens up — in the one document that tells a contributor which decisions bind them. The index is the registry; this line points at it. DESIGN.md ranks below the ADRs it spawned and loses to them on any disagreement — see docs/SOURCE_OF_TRUTH.md §"Where DESIGN.md sits"
• How-to: docs/procedures/ (build, development, CI/CD, testing, release)
• Audit records: docs/reports/ — dated, per-commit analysis snapshots; currently 2026-09-03-scanner-audit.html (CodeQL + PREfast raw-SARIF findings, dispositions and Roadmap)
• History & status: CHANGELOG.md · docs/HANDOVER.md · docs/KNOWN_ISSUES.md · docs/FUTURE_RISKS.md · docs/POSTMORTEMS.md

The documentation falls into four classes, kept deliberately separate — Developer, User (docs/user/), Internal/testing, Legal. worklogs/ sits outside all four: session-local investigation records that are never cited as policy. See docs/SOURCE_OF_TRUTH.md.

Validation gate

Level	What	Status
1	Compiler warnings, CodeQL, MSVC /analyze	scaffolded, activates at P1
2–3	Headless DSP + state-compatibility self-tests	activates at P1
4	pluginval — both modes ×3, blocking on all three platforms, editor under xvfb; strictness is ANABASIS_PLUGINVAL_STRICTNESS in .github/workflows/build.yml, which carries the phase ladder and is the only copy	activates at P1
5	Manual audition in a DAW	required for release sign-off; not headlessly reproducible

A green build + pluginval pass is "ready to audition," not final sign-off (docs/policies/TESTING_POLICY.md).

Relationship to Anamorph

Anamorph is a read-only reference for this project. Anabasis inherits its governance system, CI/CD shape, testing conventions, build structure and brand system, and may copy and adapt first-party code from it. Anabasis never modifies the Anamorph repository. What is deliberately shared and what deliberately differs is tabulated in docs/DEVELOPMENT_BRIEF.md §23.

Licensing

Anabasis is a closed-source commercial product — it is not open-source software. The source being readable here is not a licence: no LICENSE file is present, and this repository grants no right to use, copy, modify or redistribute the code or binaries beyond what written permission from RollyTech provides (all rights reserved by default).

Anabasis is built on JUCE, whose modules are dual-licensed AGPLv3 or commercial; a closed-source distribution model cannot use the AGPLv3 arm, so the commercial JUCE tier must be in place before commercial distribution. Commercial VST3 distribution requires reviewing Steinberg's licensing requirements separately. The licence tier this project ships under is an open decision — docs/OPEN_QUESTIONS.md OQ-002.

Third-party attribution: NOTICE carries the notices that must accompany a binary distribution, and THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md is the complete verified inventory (component, purpose, licence, and the exact file each licence was read from). Since 0.1.1 they ship as version-named release-page assets rather than being copied into the archives — the one carrier every download route passes through, since neither installer ever carried them (ADR-0021; docs/policies/RELEASE_POLICY.md §"Third-party attribution").

Contributors and AI agents: read CLAUDE.md and docs/policies/AI_AGENT_POLICY.md before changing code — some changes (parameter IDs, serialization, threading, DSP order, latency) are hard-stop, human-review-required.