After five hotfix iterations on the WhisperX install (v0.12.0:0–:4) we
never got a working docker build. The fundamental constraint isn't
patchable from outside NVIDIA: NGC PyTorch on ARM64 (the only base that
runs on Spark 2's GB10 Blackwell) ships a custom-versioned torch
2.10.0a0+b558c98 that has no pre-built torchaudio match anywhere.
WhisperX → pyannote → torchaudio is a hard dependency chain we couldn't
satisfy without rebuilding torchaudio against torch 2.10's alpha API.
Walking away cleanly is better than another night of chasing.
Removed from the codebase:
- image/whisperx_container/* (Dockerfile + requirements + app/main.py)
- image/app/whisperx_install.py (install manager + SSH ship-context logic)
- image/Dockerfile COPY whisperx_container
- WHISPERX_* config keys in config.py
- whisperx service entry in services.py
- WhisperX-preferred branch in audio_proxy.py
- /api/whisperx/* endpoints in server.py
- install banner + progress dialog in index.html
- render + handlers in app.js
- .whisperx-install styles in style.css
Spark 2 cleaned in tandem (user-authorized): container removed,
~/whisperx-build/ removed, 5.4 GB of dangling image layers + 1.3 GB of
builder cache reclaimed. parakeet-asr and magpie-tts unaffected and
healthy throughout.
The audio path is back to exactly what shipped in v0.11.0:3:
POST /api/audio/transcribe-with-speakers
→ Parakeet (transcription) + Sortformer (diarization) in parallel
→ merged by timestamp into speaker-labeled blocks
v0.13.0:1+ will add the actually-needed fixes that the WhisperX detour
was meant to address:
1. memory cap on the parakeet-asr container so a long-audio crash
can't swap-thrash Spark 2 again
2. a chunking proxy in /api/audio/transcribe-with-speakers that
splits inputs >10 min before Sortformer
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Replaces the manual rsync+build+run with a proper spark-control feature.
First in the audio path that doesn't require shell access on Spark 2.
What's in the box
─────────────────
* image/whisperx_container/ - the build context (Dockerfile, requirements,
app/main.py FastAPI wrapper). Mainline pipeline: faster-whisper for STT +
pyannote 3.1 for diarization + wav2vec2 forced alignment. Single endpoint
/v1/audio/transcribe-with-speakers returns the exact same shape spark-
control's existing endpoint does, so the recap-relay PR spec needs no
changes when we cut over.
* image/app/whisperx_install.py - install manager. ships build context to
Spark 2 over SSH, runs `docker build`, runs `docker run` with 40 GB
memory cap (vs Sortformer's unbounded which thrashed Spark 2 on a 90-min
file), polls /health until both Whisper + pyannote report loaded.
* Audio proxy: /api/audio/transcribe-with-speakers now prefers WhisperX
when its /health reports diarizer_loaded=true, falls back to the legacy
Parakeet + Sortformer path otherwise. Same response shape either way.
Clean cutover, easy rollback (`docker rm whisperx-asr`).
* Dashboard (Audio / Speech tab):
- "Add WhisperX" banner appears when not installed, with a primary
"Install WhisperX" button. One click triggers the install.
- Build progress dialog with phase + elapsed timer + live build log via
SSE (`/api/whisperx/install/{job_id}/stream`).
- After install, WhisperX auto-registers as a managed service alongside
Parakeet and Magpie (Start/Restart/Stop, deep-check, auto-restart).
- Banner self-hides once /api/whisperx/status reports healthy.
New endpoints
─────────────
GET /api/whisperx/status
POST /api/whisperx/install
GET /api/whisperx/install/{job_id}
GET /api/whisperx/install/{job_id}/stream (SSE phase + log)
Config additions (env)
──────────────────────
WHISPERX_HOST (defaults to spark2_host)
WHISPERX_USER (defaults to spark2_user)
WHISPERX_CONTAINER (default: whisperx-asr)
WHISPERX_PORT (default: 8002)
WHISPERX_MODEL (default: medium; tiny/base/small/medium/large-v3)
Dockerfile
──────────
Added COPY whisperx_container /app/whisperx_container so the runtime
install manager can read the build context from inside the spark-control
image and ship it over SSH.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Folds the image/parakeet_patches/apply.sh script into a one-click
dashboard action and adds drift detection so you can see at a glance
whether the parakeet-asr container has the latest Sortformer overlays
that spark-control ships.
Backend:
* image/app/speech_models.py - SpeechModelsManager: reads /health from
Parakeet, sha256s the local overlay files inside spark-control's
Docker image (/app/parakeet_patches), sha256s the same files inside
the parakeet-asr container via `docker exec ... sha256sum`, surfaces
in_sync / drift / missing status per file.
* GET /api/speech-models - status payload
* POST /api/speech-models/reapply - copies overlays into container,
verifies python syntax, restarts,
polls /health for ~120s, returns
step-by-step result
* POST /api/speech-models/restart - plain `docker restart parakeet-asr`
Dockerfile: now COPY parakeet_patches into the image at /app/parakeet_patches
so the runtime can read them. Future spark-control releases auto-carry
newer overlay versions; the panel surfaces drift after upgrade.
Frontend: new "Speech model patches" section on the dashboard with
* Status pill (in sync / drift / missing)
* Per-file SHA comparison (local vs container)
* Loaded-models pills (ASR + diarizer)
* Reapply + Restart buttons (both with confirmation modals)
* Live progress display during reapply with per-step ✓/✗
Verified post-install against the running cluster:
GET /api/speech-models shows both files in_sync (SHAs match) and both
models loaded ready on Spark 2.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Keysat