Archive collection
Netlabels
Independent releases and artist-run labels. Start anywhere and follow a thread.
Shape discovery
These controls use Archive metadata. No audio model is connected. Exclusions apply locally to each result page; they are never sent with your search. Archive credits may be incomplete.
Discover
Explore recordings, follow an artist or a sound, and save music you want to return to.
A few places to begin
Playlists & listening paths
Archive collection
Live Music Archive
Concert recordings, live sets and the sound of a room.
From the Archive
Recently added recordings
Explore recent additions to the Internet Archive’s audio collections.
Looking through the Archive…
Music from the Archive
LIVE ARCHIVE INDEXLiked tracks
Opening your liked tracks…
Playlists
Save a portable copy of your library, or Load one. Likes and playlists stay in this browser.
Up next
DEV DIARY / NOT A FEED
log
Updates to the player, discovery tools and saved library.
- Last updated
- 11 Oct 2026
- Status rule
- Local is not public
- House rule
- Append, do not rewrite history
In progressbuilt for preview; not released on the public site
Shippedlive and checked on the public site
Known weirdnessreal edge, documented instead of disguised
- Shipped
Reliability / Archive requests
Less work for a cover.
Browsing and library lists use Archive thumbnails without fetching extra metadata or probing original images. Opened releases and the player still resolve larger artwork, sharing the result across repeated cover elements. Failed requests show their error on Discover and no longer claim that the app is working normally. Retry stays manual.
Verified on 11 Oct 2026: 16 local unit tests, local library and drawer regressions, and public drawer and failure-display checks using controlled Archive responses. Live checks also reproduced a search timeout and direct Archive HTTP 502 responses. Reduced request volume is verified; the cause of the upstream interruption is not established.
- Shipped
Player / artwork
Artwork in its own drawer.
The player thumbnail opens a separate artwork panel over the sidebar. It fits the whole cover above the player without moving the page or interrupting audio. Close it with the thumbnail, Close button or Escape. Covered navigation is kept out of keyboard focus.
Verified publicly on 11 Oct 2026: deployed assets and drawer checks at four desktop and mobile sizes, including short screens, unchanged page geometry, Close and Escape focus recovery, and unchanged prepared audio state using a controlled Archive fixture. Local library recovery and genre-layout browser checks also passed.
- Shipped
Name / language
A new name: Sully.
The player has a new name and revised wording that puts the music and its makers first. Existing listening links, likes, playlists and backups remain compatible.
Verified publicly on 11 Oct 2026: Sully app and information page, old-route redirects with query strings and listening fragments, and a shared Archive release opening without autoplay. Locally: 12 unit checks plus library recovery, genre browsing and responsive-layout browser suites passed.
- Shipped
Released / genre discovery
More than one way into a genre.
The directory has 165 genre names across 14 overlapping families. Explore narrower and neighbouring styles separately from adding listening filters. Alternative names, a complete alphabetical view, and custom or unclassified tags stay accessible.
Balanced starting selections give each family space, stay stable while browsing, and change on Reshuffle. Recent selections stay on this device. This rotates genre suggestions, not recordings; catalogue coverage and playable availability are not implied.
Checked: automated checks and all three browser suites passed on preview and the public site, including overlapping selection, reload stability, unavailable storage, failed-directory recovery and narrow screens. The Figma revision is implemented: a dense directory, dedicated relationship views, 44px filter targets and a selection bar above playback. Keyboard focus and browsing position are retained when returning. Verified publicly on 11 October 2026, including keyboard access, scroll restoration and narrow or short screens.
- Shipped
Library / interface
A library that can leave with you.
Playlists, complete-library backups, editable metadata modes, local artist exclusions and optional paused queue recovery, with the shared Figma interface and sorting for liked releases. Tested migration from existing likes and restore into a fresh browser. Sound analysis is not connected. See DEVELOPMENT.md for remaining work.
- Shipped
Fixed / navigation
One column, including short screens.
The desktop sidebar keeps its vertical navigation at every height, with tighter spacing and flexible artwork. On phones, a Menu button opens the same single list instead of occupying the screen with a two-column grid.
Checked locally and publicly on 10 Oct 2026 at six screen sizes: single-column alignment, artwork fitting without sidebar scrolling, mobile Menu opening and closing, navigation and keyboard focus.
-
Shipped
Fixed / discovery and playback
Names stay together. Artwork gets room.
Search now offers Artist, Release title, Tags and Artists & releases. Names stay together, with credited artists weighted above release titles and relevance before recency. Nothing gives a particular artist special treatment.
The shared sidebar fits the screen without its own scroll, with larger artwork and no repeated track details. Short screens compact the navigation. Main content remains scrollable.
FLAC, WAV and Opus join the supported audio files. Each recording gets one playable rendition, so an MP3 elsewhere on an album no longer hides its other tracks. Items with no public playable audio explain the limitation and link to the source.
Checked publicly on 10 Oct 2026: the normal and fresh Sully URLs, artist search returning nine A Kind of Likeness releases, MP3 playback, silent FLAC Slips and responsive sidebar. Also checked locally: artist, title and tag search; MP3 and FLAC playback; exact shared links without autoplay; unavailable-item explanation; navigation; six desktop and mobile sizes; format and reference regression checks.
-
Shipped
Changed / interface
The buttons have stopped pretending.
Sully now uses its shared Figma spine: a proper listening rail, a dedicated Discover route, and one icon language. Share has left transport where it was causing trouble and now sits where a normal human expects it.
Checked publicly: the normal Sully URL now serves the Figma interface; desktop and narrow layouts, navigation, release detail, track selection, and the exact-share sheet were also checked locally.
-
Shipped
Added / sharing
Share this music.
Sully Slip gives a specific Archive release, file, and optional listening moment its own compact link. A recommendation should arrive as the thing, not as a scavenger hunt.
Checked: protocol, real inbound Slip, share controls, and public route on 07 Oct 2026.
-
Shipped
Added / embed
Quiet by construction.
A small embed points at the same public Archive item. It presents a plain Play button; it does not make a room suddenly make sound merely because a page loaded.
Checked: the public embed resolved its real Archive track and remained quiet until explicit Play on 07 Oct 2026.
-
Shipped
Added / keeper tools
A log and a manual, because future-you is also a person.
This Log records behaviour and deployment facts. Docs is the non-user manual: where data comes from, where state lives, how sharing works, and how to change things without turning a small player into a haunted house.
Checked: Log and Docs opened on public Sully while the selected track remained ready on 07 Oct 2026.
-
Known weirdness
Boundary / previews
Fragments are invisible to the server.
Sully Slips use the URL fragment so sharing stays static and private to the browser. That means a server cannot make per-track social preview cards from a Slip alone. Proper Open Graph or oEmbed previews need a separate server-backed project.
How to feed this log without making it weird
Append one entry after a meaningful behaviour, reliability, or deployment change. Give it a date, a status, a short title, what changed, and what was actually checked. Mark a local change In progress. After the feature is checked publicly, change the entry to Shipped, publish that status update, and check the public Log itself.
YYYY-MM-DD · [IN THE POT | SHIPPED | KNOWN WEIRDNESS] · [ADDED | CHANGED | FIXED] Small memorable title. What changed and why it matters. Checked: command, browser path, or public URL. Caveat: the honest edge, if there is one.
FOR PEOPLE WITH THE KEYS
keepers’ manual
How Sully works, where its data comes from, and how to maintain it.
- Shape
- Static client-side app
- Source of music
- Internet Archive metadata + files
- First rule
- Keep it small, legible, and honest
Start here: the ten-minute restart
- Read the source and this manual before editing. Sully is buildless on purpose.
- Serve the folder locally with a plain static server. Do not invent a build chain to change a sentence or button.
- Make the smallest layer-specific change: markup and CSS for a static view, app code for behaviour, protocol code for sharing.
- Run focused checks, then use a real Archive item in a browser. A green syntax check cannot tell you whether live metadata is strange today.
- Update Docs when a contract changes, append the Log for meaningful behaviour or deployment facts, then deploy coupled assets together.
Do not put credentials here. The handover ledger records where deployment knowledge lives, not secrets themselves.
System map: a small, static listening machine
browser
├─ index.html structure, styles, dialogs, navigation
├─ app.js search, release UI, player, queue, liked state
├─ artwork.js artwork helpers
├─ Internet Archive advancedsearch
│ └─ discovery result identifiers
├─ Internet Archive metadata/{identifier}
│ └─ authoritative labels + playable files
└─ IndexedDB: slop-library / saved
└─ this browser's liked tracks only
There is no account, server-side library, queue sync, or hidden recommendation profile. The app asks Archive for public information and keeps only local convenience state in the browser.
Data and playback: let Archive metadata win
Discovery can begin with an Archive advanced-search result, but a release and playback resolve Archive metadata. That response is the authority for the title, creator, date, rights, and actual file list.
Construct playable URLs from the Archive identifier and the exact metadata file name. A human-facing release title is a label, never a stable audio path. Show a plain failure rather than guessing a nearby URL.
Playback state is one thing at a time: selected track, source URL, audio element, and visible player. Reading Log or Docs must not reset playback or queue state.
Local state: liked, queue, history
Individual liked tracks live in IndexedDB under slop-library, store saved. This is per-browser convenience state. Never imply that a link, export, or feature shares it with another person.
Queue and listening history are session behaviour. The easy regression is making a detail dialog or received link unexpectedly write history, clear a queue, or start audio.
When changing local data shape, keep backwards reads tolerant where possible and test an existing browser profile as well as a blank one.
Sully Slip: exact sharing without a new service
A Slip is a versioned location fragment:
Search matches phrases in credited artists and release titles. The Tags option searches Archive subject tags. Use the search type to narrow the field. Search results use relevance; browsing without a query uses newest uploads. Archive credits can be incomplete. Audio renditions are selected per original recording according to browser support; private files are excluded. Some Archive records contain only bundles or restricted audio.
#v=1&r=archive-identifier&f=relative%2Ftrack.ogg&at=83
v=1is a promise that the format remains readable; do not reinterpret it silently.ris the validated Archive identifier.fis optional for a release-only Slip. When present it must be a relative playable mp3, ogg, m4a, flac, wav, or opus file: no scheme, backslash, control character, absolute path, or dot segment.atis an optional whole-second timestamp, capped at seven days, and only makes sense withf.- Labels displayed to the listener come from Archive metadata, never text in a URL.
A release-only Slip opens the release. A track Slip prepares the exact track and seeks once its source is ready, but never autoplays. Keep timestamp listeners bound to the expected source so a later track choice cannot receive an old seek.
Location fragments are not sent to a static server. That is good for this no-account protocol, but per-track social cards and oEmbed discovery are a separate server-backed project if they are ever wanted.
Release procedure: change, check, say what happened
- Name the user-visible outcome and the invariant that must survive it.
- Trace the live path before editing: source, state, player, and public URL contract.
- Change the smallest appropriate layer. Avoid unrelated clean-up on a live fix.
- Run focused syntax checks, then test a real Archive result and fresh sharing link in a browser.
- Update Docs when the stable handover knowledge changed. Append a Log entry for behaviour, reliability, or deployment facts.
- Deploy coupled static files together and bump cache suffixes when browsers could otherwise keep mismatched code.
- Verify the public functional release in a fresh tab.
- Then publish the Log status change from In progress to Shipped in a separate small update and verify the public Log itself.
Handover ledger: leave a trail, not a treasure map
Handover status: source and deployment facts are recorded here; add a human contact route before a formal handover. This manual gives the shape of the work; it must not bluff access it does not have.
| Thing | Record here |
|---|---|
| Live URL | akindoflikeness.net/tools/sully/. Record the date it was last verified. |
| Source location | GitHub repository akindoflikeness/akindoflikeness-site, path tools/sully/, branch main. |
| Deploy path | Push the reviewed commit to main. Cloudflare Pages publishes the static site. Roll back with a reviewed revert on main; never paste access tokens here. |
| Known edges | Archive availability and metadata quality are external dependencies. Sully Slip fragments cannot produce server-side social previews alone. |
| Last keeper | Required before formal handover: add a human contact route, not an assumption that the previous laptop remains immortal. |
Troubleshooting: boring answers first
- A Slip opens the wrong track.
- Confirm metadata file name matches
fexactly, including nested directories and Unicode. Confirm audio URLs use the Archive identifier, not a displayed release title. - A received Slip suddenly plays.
- Check the prepare path passes an explicit no-autoplay flag and a browser user gesture is still required for playback.
- The app has old behaviour after deploy.
- Look for mismatched cached static assets. Update cache suffixes on files that must ship together and check a fresh tab.
- Docs broke a shared track.
- Remove hash routing or anchor links. Tabs use the in-app view system, leaving
location.hashentirely to Sully Slip.
About the app
Sully is a place to explore music hosted on the Internet Archive. Browse recordings, follow an artist or a sound, and listen to full releases. The music, artwork and credits belong with the people who made them; each release links back to its original Archive page. Audio streams directly from the Archive.
Listening queue
Click an album cover to play its first track and queue the rest. Click its title to open the release details without changing playback. Up next holds the tracks you add; they play before the remaining album tracks. Playing another album replaces only the album queue. Queues last for this visit unless you enable queue recovery, which restores them paused on this device.
Follow the sound
“More like this” searches the Archive for releases with shared tags. These are metadata matches. Artist, track, and rights information come from the original upload. Follow Full release & rights to hear the rest.
Keep what you find
Hearts like tracks in this browser, with no account. Save a backup from Liked tracks to keep your likes, playlists and discovery preferences, or load it on another device. Loading merges with your existing library. Backups contain references and metadata, not audio. Private browsing and clearing site data can remove your local copy.
Source and licence
The interface is MIT licensed, has no build dependencies, and can be hosted as static files. The music retains its own rights: check each release before reusing it.
Interface source · App code · Artwork code · MIT license · How it works
Nearby open projects
Dustic is an existing open-source Archive player worth exploring alongside this prototype.