Protocol
Framing, varints, primitives, method calls, by-val structs, and the object graph are mapped well enough to talk to a Core. Cross-checked against my own packet captures.
roon-internal-api
Roon ships a small, sandboxed extension API. Its own desktop app speaks a much richer
private protocol to the Core. This is a tinkering investigation into that protocol — how
far can you drive a Core from a script? It's a proof-of-concept put together for fun, not
a finished or supported tool.
Why bother
Section titled “Why bother”Roon users have been asking for a more capable API for years. The official
node-roon-api is deliberately limited — no
metadata editing, no real library management, just a sandboxed slice of what the app can do.
So this is the brute-force route: watch what the desktop client itself sends to the Core, figure out the wire format, and see how much of it you can replay from your own code. It’s an experiment, not a product, and definitely not blessed by Roon.
What seems to work
Section titled “What seems to work”This is one person tinkering against a single Core, confirmed by hand — not a test matrix across setups. Treat everything as “worked for me,” not “guaranteed.”
A TypeScript port
~14k LOC. Typed wrappers are code-generated for all ~1550 methods, but the vast majority are untested — generated from metadata, not exercised live.
Tried by hand
Reading the object graph, favoriting, playing an album, pause, standby, and a reversible metadata edit each worked once or twice against my setup.
Lots still open
Most notably full streaming-catalog search (arbitrary Tidal/Qobuz terms). In-library search half-works. Plenty of rough edges. Pitch in →
Built with Claude
Section titled “Built with Claude”Most of this — the protocol decoding, the TypeScript port, the codegen, and these docs — was done by pair-programming with Claude (Anthropic’s Claude Code). It’s as much an experiment in “how far can an AGI agent push a gnarly reverse-engineering task” as it is a Roon experiment.
How this went The actual path: a wrong theory about auth, reading the decompiled client, and confirming there's no local auth.
Protocol notes Wire format as I understand it: framing, varints, primitives, calls, structs, object graph.
Using the client Point it at your own Core and try the bits that work. You supply your own connection details.
Contributing Capture traffic, find your own Core's details, run the checks, and help with the open bits.