library.liken.sh

library-operator declares the media libraries of a cluster as Kubernetes resources, and puts a media browser for them on every screen. It runs on a liken cluster above media-operator, which owns the players, the plays, and the remotes. This operator owns what there is to play.

A Library is one root directory of media on a volume: a directory of movies, a directory of series, or a checkout of franchise files. The operator runs a scanner for each one. The scanner reads the files and the metadata beside them into a catalog, and a gossip agent replicates that catalog to every screen within a second of a change. The media browser is a native Wayland client. It takes the place of the idle screen on a Player, lets a person walk into a library, and starts a Play on that Player.

The volume stays the source of truth. The files, the .nfo sidecars, and the artwork are what the operator reads and writes, in the forms Kodi and Jellyfin read. The catalog is derived and rebuildable.

Start here:

The operator is optional. A cluster that never installs it runs unchanged, and a Player whose idle controller never names it draws media-operator’s own idle screen. It publishes no devices. The screen it draws claims the display through the Player’s standing claim, which the display operator serves.