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+<h1>
+  <img src="assets/icons/peerspeak.svg" width="48" align="left" alt="PeerSpeak icon">
+  PeerSpeak
+</h1>
+
+Decentralized, peer-to-peer voice chat — full-mesh, NAT-traversing, with **no central server**. Built in Rust on [iroh](https://github.com/n0-computer/iroh) (QUIC), PipeWire audio, the Opus codec, and an [iced](https://github.com/iced-rs/iced) GUI.
+
+Create a room, share the join ticket, and talk. Everyone connects directly to everyone else; relays are only used to punch through NATs when a direct path isn't available.
+
+---
+
+## Screenshots
+
+| Launch screen | In a room |
+|---|---|
+| ![Launch screen](docs/screenshots/launch.jpg) | ![In a room](docs/screenshots/in-room.jpg) |
+
+| Settings |
+|---|
+| ![Settings](docs/screenshots/settings.jpg) |
+
+---
+
+## Features
+
+**Rooms & sessions**
+- Create a room → shareable join ticket; join by pasting a ticket.
+- Full-mesh multi-peer rooms with live presence.
+- Recent-rooms list to hop back into a room someone's still in.
+- Remembered nickname and in-call duration timer.
+
+**Audio**
+- PipeWire capture/playback, selectable input and output devices, per-app gain.
+- Opus codec (48 kHz mono, 20 ms frames) with an adaptive jitter buffer + packet-loss concealment.
+- Noise gate with a draggable threshold on a live mic meter (test your mic off-call too).
+- Mix-bus soft limiter and opt-in echo cancellation (PipeWire WebRTC AEC + noise suppression).
+
+**Voice controls**
+- Self-mute, deafen, and rebindable push-to-talk.
+- Per-peer volume, local mute, and speaking indicators.
+
+**Text chat**
+- In-room text chat over the gossip plane, with clickable links and inline image/audio attachments.
+- Drag-selectable, copyable messages; right-click context menu on all text fields.
+
+**Shared music listening**
+- Build a personal playlist of local audio files with a full transport (play/pause, seek, reorder).
+- Let others tune in: peers stream your current track, timeline-synced and gapless, sitting under voice at their own volume.
+
+**Screen share** (via [pixelpass](https://gitbutter.xyz/mollusk/pixelpass))
+- Share your screen; peers click 👁 Watch to open the stream in mpv (vlc fallback).
+- Live badges on sharing peers; per-app audio capture.
+
+**Recording & notifications**
+- Local call recording (mic + incoming mix → WAV in `~/peerspeak-recordings/`).
+- Desktop notifications and event chimes with per-event custom sound overrides.
+
+**UI & networking**
+- Selectable room layouts (3-Column, Bottom Dock, Drawer) with draggable, persisted dividers.
+- 10 built-in themes (Catppuccin, Dracula, Nord, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Solarized…), all WCAG-AA checked.
+- Network mode picker (relay-no-discovery default, full n0, or direct-only); retained-address reconnect.
+- Config, window size/position, and all preferences persisted to `~/.config/peerspeak/`.
+
+See [`docs/FEATURES.md`](docs/FEATURES.md) for the full inventory and field-test status, and [`docs/ARCHITECTURE.md`](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) for internals.
+
+## Roadmap
+
+- **Contacts & invites** — friends list with invite-notification one-click join (design in [`docs/contacts-plan.md`](docs/contacts-plan.md)).
+- **Spatial audio & per-peer EQ.**
+- **Soundboard** — play short clips into the call mix.
+- **Room persistence / invite links** beyond the raw ticket.
+- **Windows support** — cross-compiles and launches under Wine today; needs a real WASAPI audio pass (see [`docs/WINDOWS.md`](docs/WINDOWS.md)).
+
+## Building
+
+PeerSpeak builds with a stable Rust toolchain (edition 2024). Install the system dependencies below, then:
+
+```sh
+cargo build --release
+./target/release/peerspeak
+```
+
+### System dependencies
+
+**Arch Linux**
+
+```sh
+sudo pacman -S --needed rust pipewire opus pkgconf clang git
+```
+
+**Debian / Ubuntu**
+
+```sh
+sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config clang libclang-dev \
+  libpipewire-0.3-dev libopus-dev libasound2-dev libxcb1-dev
+```
+
+Plus a Rust toolchain via [rustup](https://rustup.rs/). `clang`/`libclang` are needed for the PipeWire bindings (bindgen).
+
+At runtime you need a running **PipeWire** server. Screen sharing additionally requires `pixelpass` on your `PATH`, and `mpv` (or `vlc`) to watch a peer's share.
+
+### Packaging
+
+- **Arch:** `cd packaging && makepkg -si` (uses [`packaging/PKGBUILD`](packaging/PKGBUILD)).
+- **Debian/Ubuntu:** `.deb` is built with [`cargo-deb`](https://github.com/kornelski/cargo-deb) from the `[package.metadata.deb]` block in `Cargo.toml`. Build inside a Debian/Ubuntu environment so the binary links that distro's glibc.
+- **Windows:** see [`docs/WINDOWS.md`](docs/WINDOWS.md).
+
+## License
+
+Private build — not for redistribution. See `Cargo.toml` for details.
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