docs/04-engine-design.md §7's failure policy table has said "403 after redirect: retry once with the original referrer; many CDNs require it" since it was written, and Error::forbidden's own enum comment says the same -- but grepping download_task.cpp and http_client.cpp for 403 turned up nothing. It was never built. Implemented at both points a 403 can surface: - The probe (net::Prober, a separate request path from segment workers): on_probe_result() now retries once via restart_probe(false), with effective_referrer set to the download URL's own origin (origin_of(), via net::split_url()), when the failure is Error::forbidden and this is the first retry. A second 403 asks rather than fails outright -- auto_pause_locked(..., false, true), the same "ask, don't just fail" path 416/etag-mismatch already use -- specifically so DownloadHandle:: refresh_url() stays usable afterward (its own contract requires a non-terminal task); this is what makes the expiring-signed-url mode's README-documented refresh_url() recovery actually reachable. - Each segment worker (SegWorker::forbidden, set in seg_head() on a 403 HEAD): the same one-shot referrer retry via retry_worker(), landing on auto_pause_locked() on a second 403 for the same reason. Both paths route the retry's Referer through a new effective_referrer field rather than spec.referrer directly, since the origin-retry must not overwrite what the caller actually asked for -- start_worker_locked() and restart_probe() were switched to send effective_referrer instead. do_refresh_url() had two latent bugs surfaced by actually exercising the expiring-signed-url recovery path end-to-end: 1. It unconditionally proceeded to resume even when the refresh probe itself failed -- a bad refresh URL would silently un-pause a task with nothing behind it. Now returns (stays paused) on !r.has_value(). 2. It only handled "already probed once, just refreshing a few fields" -- for a task whose first-ever probe never succeeded (every hostile mode this commit adds a test for that pauses at the initial probe, not mid-download), s->registered was never true, so the existing `if (s->registered) set_want()` never fired and nothing happened. Now detects !s->have_probe and calls finish_probe_locked() directly, the actual first-time registration/segmenter-construction path. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <[email protected]> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Q3QrF7rCt21bkAjt9BCDFQ
Velox Download Manager (VDM)
An IDM-class download manager for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS: multi-segment accelerated HTTP(S) downloading, resume, categories and automatic file distribution, queues and scheduler, speed limiter, a Firefox extension that captures downloads automatically, and clipboard link capture.
Name is a placeholder. Binaries are
veloxd,velox-gui,velox,velox-nmhost. Rename before first release if you want something else — do it in M0, never later.
Status
Phase M0 — scaffolding. No implementation code exists yet. This repository currently contains the architecture, the wire contract, the roadmap, and one brief per build lane so that several agents can work in parallel without colliding.
Start here:
| Document | What it answers |
|---|---|
| docs/01-architecture.md | Process model, why four binaries, framework choices and why |
| docs/02-roadmap.md | Milestones M0–M7, what runs in parallel, exit gates |
| docs/03-gui-spec.md | IDM-parity UI: every window, dialog, column, menu |
| docs/04-engine-design.md | Segmentation, resume, buffers, rate limiting, disk I/O |
| docs/05-extension-spec.md | Firefox capture, transports, pairing, media grabber |
| docs/06-risks-and-spikes.md | Snap Firefox, Wayland clipboard, and the other landmines |
| docs/07-packaging.md | .deb/PPA, Flatpak, AMO signing, install layout |
| contracts/README.md | The interface. Both sides build against this |
| CLAUDE.md | Rules of engagement for agents working in this repo |
Per-lane briefs live in docs/agents/ — one per agent, each with an owned directory list, a definition of done, and the files it must never touch. To dispatch the agents, use docs/agents/PROMPTS.md — six copy-paste prompts plus the worktree commands and the wave order.
Architecture in one picture
┌────────────────────┐ native messaging (stdio JSON) ┌──────────────┐
│ Firefox extension │◄───────────── or ──────────────►│ velox-nmhost │
│ (MV3, TS) │ loopback WS 127.0.0.1 + token └──────┬───────┘
└────────────────────┘ │
│
┌────────────────────┐ ▼
│ velox-gui (Qt 6) │◄──── JSON-RPC 2.0 over Unix socket ──► ┌─────────────┐
└────────────────────┘ $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/velox/velox.sock │ veloxd │
│ (daemon) │
┌────────────────────┐ │ │
│ velox (CLI) │◄───────────────────────────────────────┤ libveloxcore│
└────────────────────┘ └──────┬──────┘
│
SQLite + sparse files
The daemon owns all state and all sockets. The GUI is a view — closing it does not stop a download. The extension never touches the disk; it hands URL + headers + cookies to the daemon and gets a task id back.
Repository layout
vdm/
├── contracts/ ⭐ Wire contract: JSON Schema, fixtures, codegen. Frozen per version.
├── core/ C++23 libveloxcore — engine. No UI, no RPC, no SQL.
├── daemon/ C++23 veloxd — RPC server, scheduler, queues, SQLite store.
├── gui/ C++23 velox-gui — Qt 6 Widgets, IDM-parity UI.
├── cli/ C++23 velox — scriptable client.
├── nmhost/ C++23 velox-nmhost — Firefox native-messaging bridge (thin pipe).
├── extension/ TS Firefox MV3 WebExtension.
├── tools/
│ ├── mockd/ TS mock daemon — lets GUI + extension work before veloxd exists.
│ ├── testserver/ Deliberately hostile HTTP server (no Range, flaky, redirects, auth).
│ ├── bench/ Throughput and CPU benchmarks.
│ └── fuzz/ libFuzzer targets for parsers.
├── tests/
│ ├── conformance/ Protocol suite. Every lane must pass it. Gate for merging.
│ ├── integration/ veloxd + testserver.
│ └── e2e/ Playwright: real Firefox + real daemon + real file on disk.
├── packaging/ debian/, flatpak/, appimage/, native-host manifests.
└── docs/ Everything above, plus adr/ and agents/.
Toolchain bootstrap
Surveyed on this machine 2026-09-09 — most of it is already installed:
| Present | Version |
|---|---|
| git · cmake · ninja · g++ · gdb | 2.53.0 · 4.2.3 · — · 15.2.0 (C++23 ready) |
| qt6-base-dev · qt6-tools-dev · qt6-tools-dev-tools | ✓ |
| libcurl4-openssl-dev · libsqlite3-dev · nlohmann-json3-dev · libssl-dev | ✓ |
| libavformat-dev · libavcodec-dev · ffmpeg | ✓ |
| clang-format · clang-tidy · python3 · pkg-config | ✓ |
| python3-jsonschema · python3-referencing (conformance static runner) | ✓ |
Only these four are missing:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
qt6-svg-dev \ # GUI: SVG icon rendering
libsecret-1-dev \ # DAEMON: Secret Service for site logins
nodejs npm \ # EXT + PROTO: extension build, mockd, conformance runner
clang # optional: libFuzzer targets in M7
Node in the 26.04 archive may lag; if the extension toolchain needs 22+, use nvm.
Verify with cmake --preset dev && cmake --build --preset dev once lane CORE lands its
first target. Note CMake 4.2.3 is installed — newer than the 3.28 floor in
CMakeLists.txt, and it hard-errors on cmake_minimum_required below 3.5, so no
dependency may ship a pre-3.5 CMake file.