splug - High-Performance Audio Plugin

A metal-down VST3/CLAP audio plugin built with Rust and Vulkan.

Architecture

• PAL (Platform Abstraction Layer) - Native windowing without winit
• GUI - Shared interface components (event handling, UI state)
• Render - Vulkan graphics with SVG rasterization
• Core - Lock-free audio processing and state management

Building

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (stable)
• Vulkan SDK (for shader compilation with glslc)
  • macOS: brew install vulkan-tools or download from LunarG
  • Windows: Install from LunarG Vulkan SDK
  • The build system will auto-detect glslc in standard locations including ~/.local/VulkanSDK

Build Commands

# Build all workspace crates
cargo build --workspace

# Run tests (5 tests passing)
cargo test --workspace

# Build and bundle the plugin (with shader compilation)
cargo run --package xtask -- bundle

# Run standalone (with GUI, when implemented)
cargo run --bin standalone

# Run standalone in headless mode
cargo run --bin standalone -- --headless

Bundle Output

After running cargo run --package xtask -- bundle, the plugin will be located at:

• macOS: target/bundled/splug.vst3/
• Windows: target/bundled/splug.vst3

Compiled shaders: target/shaders/*.spv

Development Status

Phase 1: Build System & Skeleton - Complete

• Workspace structure with 6 crates
• cargo-xtask build automation
• Shader compilation pipeline (auto-detects Vulkan SDK)
• Platform-specific bundle generation
• macOS codesigning
• PAL and GUI crate skeletons

Phase 2: Platform Abstraction Layer - Skeleton created
Phase 3: Graphics Core - Not started
Phase 4: Core Logic & Persistence - Not started
Phase 5: Test Harness (RPC) - Not started

Project Structure

rust-vst/
├── plugin/              # Core plugin library (cdylib)
│   └── src/
│       ├── lib.rs       # VST3 entry points with panic safety
│       ├── pal/         # Platform Abstraction Layer (legacy, moved to pal crate)
│       ├── render/      # Vulkan rendering (Phase 3)
│       ├── core/        # Audio processing (Phase 4)
│       └── shaders/     # GLSL shaders
├── pal/                 # Platform Abstraction Layer library
│   └── src/
│       ├── lib.rs       # NativeWindow trait
│       ├── macos.rs     # macOS implementation (Phase 2)
│       └── win32.rs     # Windows implementation (Phase 2)
├── gui/                 # Shared GUI framework
│   └── src/lib.rs       # UIEvent types, GuiContext (Phase 2-3)
├── standalone/          # Standalone host for testing
│   └── src/main.rs
├── xtask/               # Build automation
│   └── src/main.rs      # Shader compilation, bundling, codesigning
└── definitions/         # Protobuf schemas
    └── src/lib.rs       # State and RPC definitions (Phase 4-5)

Real-Time Safety Constraints

This project follows strict real-time audio programming rules:

• No allocations on the audio thread (Box, Vec, String)
• No mutex locking on the audio thread
• Use rtrb or atomics for parameter communication
• All FFI entry points wrapped in catch_unwind for panic safety

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0