NativeAOT sidecar

Native audio engine for sonic-core.

C# NativeAOT binary that handles real audio — playback, device routing, and Kokoro TTS synthesis. Communicates with sonic-core over ndjson-stdio. Single native executable, no JIT, no runtime dependency.

Get started Read the Handbook

Build

dotnet build

Publish

dotnet publish src/SonicRuntime \ -c Release -r win-x64

Protocol

→ {"id":1,"method":"version"} ← {"name":"sonic-runtime", "version":"0.5.0", "protocol":"ndjson-stdio-v1"}

Features

Everything the native audio layer provides.

OpenAL Soft

Low-latency audio via Silk.NET OpenAL bindings. Source/buffer model with per-source volume, pan, and looping.

NativeAOT

Single native executable via .NET 8 NativeAOT. No JIT warmup, no runtime dependency, sub-millisecond startup.

Per-Playback Device Routing

Route individual playbacks to specific audio output devices. Multiple device/context pairs managed lazily.

Kokoro TTS

Text-to-speech via ONNX inference with eSpeak G2P. 510 voices, ~5x realtime on CPU.

ndjson-stdio Protocol

Strict JSON-over-stdio wire format with versioned handshake. Request/response + unsolicited events. No network sockets.

95 Tests

Comprehensive xUnit suite covering playback, device management, synthesis, protocol, and event emission.

Quick Start

Build

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/mcp-tool-shop-org/sonic-runtime
cd sonic-runtime
dotnet build
dotnet test

Publish

# Build NativeAOT single-file binary
dotnet publish src/SonicRuntime \
  -c Release -r win-x64

# Output:
# src/SonicRuntime/bin/Release/
#   net8.0/win-x64/publish/SonicRuntime.exe

Wire Protocol

# Version handshake
→ {"id":1,"method":"version"}
← {"id":1,"result":{...}}

# Load + play
→ {"id":2,"method":"load_asset",
   "params":{"asset_ref":"file:///rain.wav"}}
← {"id":2,"result":{"handle":"h_000001"}}

→ {"id":3,"method":"play",
   "params":{"handle":"h_000001",
   "volume":0.8,"loop":true}}
← {"id":3,"result":null}