Brain.fm for Linux (unofficial)

A small Tauri desktop wrapper around the Brain.fm web player (https://my.brain.fm) for Linux — built because the official download page only ships Mac and Windows apps.

It is a thin native shell around the same web app the official desktop clients use, plus Linux desktop integration:

• MPRIS / media keys — Play/Pause/Next/Previous from your keyboard media keys and the desktop media widget (KDE, GNOME, waybar, etc.). Registers as org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.brainfm.
• System tray — left-click toggles the window; right-click menu has Show/Hide, Play/Pause and Quit.
• Close-to-tray — the window's close button hides to the tray instead of quitting; quit from the tray menu.

You still need a Brain.fm account/subscription. This wrapper only provides the desktop shell — audio streams from Brain.fm's servers and requires login. It does not bypass the paywall.

Install (Arch / CachyOS)

From the AUR:

paru -S brain-fm     # or: yay -S brain-fm

Then launch Brain.fm from your app launcher or run brain-fm.

Build from source without an AUR helper

cd aur
makepkg -si          # downloads the v0.1.0 release tarball, builds, installs

Dependencies

Runtime: webkit2gtk-4.1, gtk3, libayatana-appindicator, hicolor-icon-theme. Build: cargo/rust, pkgconf. (makepkg lists these in depends/makedepends.)

Develop

The tauri CLI is installed locally as a dev dependency:

npx tauri dev      # run with hot-attach + devtools
npx tauri build    # produce .deb / .AppImage bundles instead of the AUR pkg

A plain cargo build inside src-tauri/ also works — no Node/CLI required for a release build; makepkg uses exactly that path.

Project layout

Path	What
src-tauri/src/lib.rs	App setup: window, tray, close-to-tray, MPRIS bridge (souvlaki).
src-tauri/src/control.js	Injected into the page; drives playback + reports state to MPRIS.
src-tauri/tauri.conf.json	Tauri config (window built in code, remote URL).
src-tauri/capabilities/default.json	Allows the my.brain.fm origin to call the IPC command.
packaging/brain-fm.desktop	Desktop launcher entry.
aur/PKGBUILD + aur/.SRCINFO	AUR package; builds from the tagged release tarball.

If media keys don't control playback

Brain.fm's logged-in player DOM isn't public, so control.js uses a layered strategy: MediaSession state → <audio>/<video> element → clicking a play/pause button → spacebar. If your media keys register but don't toggle playback, open the player, inspect the real play/pause button, and add its selector to SELECTORS.toggle in src-tauri/src/control.js, then rebuild. The MediaSession metadata path (track title in the widget) works without any tweak if Brain.fm sets navigator.mediaSession.metadata (most web players do).

Tip — see what the widget receives:

busctl --user get-property org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.brainfm \
  /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player PlaybackStatus
# or, with playerctl installed:
playerctl -p brainfm metadata; playerctl -p brainfm play-pause

Cutting a new release

Releases are automated. To ship a new version:

scripts/release.sh patch      # or: minor | major | 1.2.3

That bumps the version in tauri.conf.json, Cargo.toml, Cargo.lock and aur/PKGBUILD, commits, tags vX.Y.Z, and (after a confirmation prompt) pushes.

Pushing the tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which:

1. creates the GitHub release (auto-generated notes),
2. computes the release-tarball sha256 and finalizes aur/PKGBUILD,
3. regenerates .SRCINFO and pushes the package to the AUR,
4. syncs the finalized PKGBUILD/.SRCINFO back to master.

One-time CI setup

The workflow needs an SSH key authorized on your AUR account, stored as the AUR_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY repo secret:

# 1. dedicated CI key (no passphrase)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/aur_ci -N "" -C "brain-fm-ci"

# 2. add the PUBLIC key to your AUR account (Account → "SSH Public Key", one per line):
cat ~/.ssh/aur_ci.pub

# 3. store the PRIVATE key as a GitHub Actions secret:
gh secret set AUR_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY -R AlpSha/brain-fm-linux < ~/.ssh/aur_ci

You can reuse your existing AUR key instead of a dedicated one, but a separate CI key is easy to revoke.

Notes / caveats

• Unofficial and not affiliated with Brain.fm. Wrapping their web app may be subject to their Terms of Service — use for personal convenience.
• Social logins (Apple/Google/Facebook) open auth popups; the webview allows them via on_new_window so the session propagates back to the main window.
• The WebKit ... preconnectTo line on startup is a benign WebKitGTK log, not a crash. The Package contains reference to $srcdir makepkg warning is cosmetic (a build-machine-local path baked by tauri-codegen).