Generation is instant. The workflow wasn't.

After more than 10,000 generations on Suno, I kept hitting the same wall: the music was done in seconds, but landing it in a session meant bouncing between browser tabs, a downloads folder, and drag-and-drop exports — every single time. The problems were always the same three:

• —Scattered across tools — the browser, the downloads folder, and the DAW never talked to each other.
• —Fragile handoff — exporting and dragging files in was inconsistent and easy to break.
• —Lost momentum — the busywork pulled focus away from the actual creative work.

Producers live inside their DAWs. Bring generation into that space, and you get faster iteration, deeper experimentation — entirely new workflows.

The obvious architecture, too: a lightweight VST embedding Suno directly inside the DAW — browse generations, manage downloads, drag audio straight into the session. I built the webview, the download system, and the plugin workflows… then hit the wall.

• —Browse & generate — Suno running natively inside the plugin window.
• —Manage downloads — a recent-generations list built into the workflow.
• —Drag into the session — the one interaction that mattered most.

The wall: JUCE/VST plugins can't reliably support native drag-and-drop into DAWs — the exact interaction everything hinged on. Forcing it meant shipping something brittle.

Instead of forcing the limitation, I split the product around it: a native macOS app paired with a plugin bridge. The SwiftUI app embeds and automates the key Suno interactions; the JUCE plugin captures host audio and hands it back as validated WAV — the two connected by a versioned protocol:

• —SwiftUI desktop app — embeds and automates Suno, with custom workflow UX and recovery overlays.
• —JUCE plugin bridge — arms and stops capture, then writes WAV automatically back to the app.
• —Versioned Unix-socket protocol — a JSON handshake with command/event framing and robust error handling.
• —Reliable capture — threshold and silence detection cleanly start and stop recording for a dependable handoff.

In about six weeks I shipped every layer myself — desktop UX, plugin internals, the protocol between them, and signed release packaging:

• —A native macOS SwiftUI app with WKWebView automation, diagnostics, and a recent-downloads subsystem.
• —A plugin audio-capture state machine with threshold/silence stops and atomic WAV finalization.
• —A versioned app↔plugin IPC protocol over Unix sockets, hardened against malformed and noisy frames.
• —Release automation producing signed drag-and-drop DMGs bundling the app, VST3, and AU.

~29 commits · ~25.8k insertions · single primary contributor.