feedBack/specs/013-midi-control-mappings/spec.md

Spec 013 — midi-control Mappings Domain (the midi-input/midi-control split)

Status: documented future contract (RESERVED — not in the runtime graph) · Issue: #882 · Depends on: spec 012 (midi-input, delivered) · Base: feedback/main

Summary

midi-control is the planned sibling of midi-input: it owns MIDI control mappings — routing CC / pitchbend / note messages to semantic actions (drum lane, transport command, effect parameter, etc.) — and consumes midi-input for device access. It does not discover, select, or open devices; that is midi-input's job (spec 012, delivered).

This spec records the split so the boundary is unambiguous and the contract is ready for whoever builds the runtime slice. Per project governance (docs/capability-safety-matrix.md, docs/capability-roadmap.md), a future domain stays documentation-only until a PR ships its host workflow, a concrete consumer, and tests — so midi-control remains RESERVED in static/capabilities.js RESERVED_FUTURE_DOMAINS until then. This spec does not register a runtime domain.

Why split it out

Before midi-input existed, "MIDI" meant two conflated concerns: getting bytes from a device, and mapping those bytes to actions. The reserved midi-control entry originally covered both. With midi-input delivered as the device control plane, midi-control is narrowed to mappings only — mirroring how audio-input (devices) is separate from audio-effects/audio-mix (what you do with the signal). Keeping them separate prevents a future god-domain and lets the device plane stabilize independently of mapping semantics.

Boundary (normative)

• midi-input owns: device discovery (discover), source list, selection, open/close sessions, the Web-MIDI permission boundary, redacted device diagnostics. The raw MIDI message stream is delivered to in-page consumers via its session handle.
• midi-control will own: named mappings from MIDI events (note / CC / pitchbend, optionally channel-scoped) to semantic actions, mapping persistence, active-mapping selection, and "learn" capture. It consumes a midi-input session for the live stream; it never calls requestMIDIAccess or enumerates devices.

Proposed contract (for the future implementation slice)

• Owner: core.midi-control (or a first-party MIDI-control plugin), multi-provider, safety sensitive.
• Commands: list-mappings, get-mapping, set-mapping, delete-mapping, activate-mapping, inspect.
• Mapping shape (sketch): { id, label, trigger: { type: 'note'|'cc'|'pitchbend', number?, channel? }, action: { domain?, command?|actionId, params? } }.
• Learn mode: open a midi-input session, capture the next matching event, and bind it to the pending action (the per-plugin "learn" UIs in drums today are the reference behaviour to generalise).
• Diagnostics: slopsmith.midi_control.diagnostics.v1 — mapping summaries + bounded recent activations; no raw MIDI streams, no device labels.

Intended consumers (promotion trigger)

The domain should be promoted out of RESERVED when a concrete consumer needs shared mappings, e.g.:

• the generic MIDI control plugin (feedback-plugin-midi) — today an ad-hoc event→action mapper; the canonical first adopter.
• drums note→lane mapping + "learn mode" (feedback-plugin-drums, feedback-plugin-drum-highway-3d) — currently per-plugin; could adopt midi-control to share mapping logic once the contract is proven.

Until such a consumer-driven slice exists (with host workflow + tests), this remains a documented contract only.

Out of scope

• Any runtime registration / handlers (governance: no premature domain).
• Migrating the drums/keys per-plugin mapping now — deferred to the consumer slice.
• The device plane — owned by midi-input (spec 012, done).