MiniHub

A free, open-source music workstation for Windows, built around the Arturia MiniLab 3 MIDI controller: a node-based Patch Bay of typed cables, a native VST3 host, a sample-accurate MIDI + audio sequencer, Mixer / Morpher / Arpeggiator / Audio Player nodes, a One Ring node that sequences the parameters of your own patch and plays notes of its own, and learning that binds physical knobs to VST3 parameters.

Your cables — not the page you happen to be looking at — decide what you hear.

---

Status

A personal project under active development. The current build is MiniHub 0.9.2, a beta, available two ways: an installer, or a portable folder you unzip and replace. Both carry the same build, and both read the same settings, projects and recordings — none of which live inside the application folder (see D-031). It also builds and runs from source, below.

The executable is not code-signed, so SmartScreen will warn; the SHA-256 sums are published with the release.

Requirements

System	Windows 10/11 — final, no port planned
Node.js	20 or newer
Compiler	Visual Studio 2022 or 2026, C++ desktop workload
CMake	3.22 or newer
Audio	a WASAPI output

Native dependencies to fetch

Roughly 682 MB, never committed. Drop them under native/third_party/:

Expected folder	What
native/third_party/JUCE	JUCE 9
native/third_party/vst3sdk	Steinberg's VST3 SDK
native/third_party/portaudio	PortAudio
native/third_party/lame	LAME, including bin/lame.exe

CMake stops with an explicit message if one is missing — there is no silent failure at this stage.

Build and run

npm install

Configure the native tree once (the only unscripted step):

cmake -S native/audio-engine -B native/audio-engine/build -A x64

Then:

npm start              # native build + dist sync + launch

Verify

npm test               # JS tests, node:test runner
npm run check          # invariant checker
npm run build:native   # must pass with 0 errors, 0 warnings

After npm run build:native:tests, the four native binaries:

native/audio-engine/build/Release/mlh_native_tests.exe --core
native/audio-engine/build/Release/mlh_native_tests.exe --vst3-e2e
native/audio-engine/build/Release/mlh_native_tests.exe --cross-track-isolation
native/audio-engine/build/Release/mlh_realtime_output_tests.exe

A change is not finished until everything that touches it is green. See AGENTS.md §8.

Diagnosis

Startup log: %APPDATA%/minilab-hub/minilab-hub-startup.log. It is the first thing to read when the engine will not start.

Documentation

The repository documents itself. Mandatory entry point for a contributor or an agent: AGENTS.md.

File	What it holds
AGENTS.md	the map — absolute rules, prohibitions, conventions, commands
INTENT.md	what MiniHub must be, and must not become
ARCHITECTURE.md	the technical architecture, section by section
DECISIONS.md	what has been settled, and why
ROADMAP.md	what is left to do
PLANS.md	long, multi-session workstreams

Name

MiniHub is the product name. minilab-hub (npm, %APPDATA%) and mlh_ (native targets) are historical and must not be "corrected": they are paths that already exist on users' disks. MiniLab alone always means the hardware controller, never the application. See AGENTS.md §2.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE.

MiniHub is an independent project, not affiliated with Arturia. MiniLab is a trademark of Arturia.