Listen on the Scarlett, because the fifine returns silence (V-487)

mavwaked has logged zero completed utterances in three days of journal, and
the wake word is not why: the count was zero before it existed too. The fifine
returns RMS 0.00004 over five seconds with its capture switch on and its ALSA
volume at the full 496 of 496, so the silence is in the hardware and no flag
reaches it.

Measured over eight seconds of the same speech: fifine 0.00004, onboard ALC897
0.142 clipping at peak 1.0, USB camera 0.289 clipping, Scarlett Solo 0.003
clean. The two loud ones clip, so the quiet clean one wins.

Named CARD=Gen rather than card 4, because a USB card number moves when
something else is replugged and this daemon must not change ears quietly.

Verified in the room: keyword heard at score 0.999, utterance complete in
1.65s, and she answered "сейчас 17 часов 24 минуты".

cmd/mavwaked/wakefeatures.go

@@ -71,15 +71,30 @@ func newWakeModels(melPath, embedPath, headPath, libPath string) (*wakeModels, e
 			return nil, fmt.Errorf("wake word: onnx runtime: %w", err)
 		}
 	}
+	// One thread per session, not the default of every core. Measured on
+	// workpc: the default took mavwaked from 68% of one core to 335% of
+	// three, for three graphs that each run in well under 80ms single
+	// threaded. An always-on gate that eats a quarter of the workstation is
+	// not a gate he will leave running.
+	opts, err := ort.NewSessionOptions()
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("wake word: session options: %w", err)
+	}
+	defer opts.Destroy()
+	if err := opts.SetIntraOpNumThreads(1); err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("wake word: intra-op threads: %w", err)
+	}
+	if err := opts.SetInterOpNumThreads(1); err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("wake word: inter-op threads: %w", err)
+	}
 	open := func(p string, in, out []string) (*ort.DynamicAdvancedSession, error) {
-		s, err := ort.NewDynamicAdvancedSession(p, in, out, nil)
+		s, err := ort.NewDynamicAdvancedSession(p, in, out, opts)
 		if err != nil {
 			return nil, fmt.Errorf("wake word: load %s: %w", p, err)
 		}
 		return s, nil
 	}
 	m := &wakeModels{}
-	var err error
 	if m.mel, err = open(melPath, []string{"input"}, []string{"output"}); err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}

deploy/mavwaked.service

@@ -4,11 +4,22 @@
 # user unit because it needs his ALSA session and his ssh agent, and because
 # it should stop when he logs out.
 #
-# THERE IS NO WAKE WORD YET (V-487 stage two). Anything spoken near the fifine
-# becomes a turn. What makes that safe rather than expensive is voiceSender:
-# it sends Surface=SurfaceVoice, which caps every command at L0, so no
-# accidental trigger runs a destructive act. It does not stop her answering
-# out loud, so this unit is his to stop when the room is not his alone.
+# The keyword is "Мэйвен" and the three -wake- flags are what require it
+# (V-487 stage two). Without them anything spoken near the fifine becomes a
+# turn, which voiceSender makes safe rather than expensive: it sends
+# Surface=SurfaceVoice, capping every command at L0. That does not stop her
+# answering out loud, which is the whole reason the keyword exists.
+#
+# The threshold is 0.999 and it is the binary's default, so it is not passed.
+# It came from 65 minutes of held-out Russian speech through this same binary:
+# 0.9 false wakes an hour against 2.8 at 0.99, for one lost render out of 126
+# (docs/evals/2026-08-09-wake-word.md). If the room proves noisier than the
+# corpus, read the scores out of this unit's journal and pass -wake-threshold.
+# Do not lower it by guessing.
+#
+# A keyword shorter than 1.32s can be heard too late to be used, because the
+# head scores 1.28s of audio and the VAD has closed the utterance by then.
+# "Мэйвен, <request>" is unaffected. A bare "Мэйвен" is the case that fails.
 #
 # -vad-model is passed on purpose. Silero answers "is this frame speech" where
 # the energy floor answers "is this frame loud". It declines white noise at
@@ -24,27 +35,39 @@
 #            systemctl --user enable --now mavwaked.service
 
 [Unit]
-Description=Maven always-on listening (VAD, no wake word yet)
+Description=Maven always-on listening (silero VAD, "Мэйвен" keyword)
 # The tunnel is the only path to mavend and the only thing authenticating it.
 Requires=maven-voice-tunnel.service
 After=maven-voice-tunnel.service
 
 [Service]
-# card 0 is the fifine USB microphone. Named, and not "default", because the
-# default device follows whatever pipewire last decided and this daemon should
-# not change ears when he plugs in a headset.
+# The Scarlett Solo 4th Gen, and not the fifine. The fifine was the device
+# here for three days and mavwaked never logged one utterance in them, because
+# it returns RMS 0.00004 with its capture switch on and its ALSA volume at the
+# full 496 of 496. That silence is in the hardware, so no flag reaches it.
+#
+# Named CARD=Gen and not card 4, because a USB card number moves when
+# something else is replugged and this daemon must not change ears quietly.
+# Not "default" either: that follows whatever pipewire last decided.
 #
 # plughw and not hw. mavwaked asks arecord for 16kHz mono, which is what the
-# whole pipeline is canonical in. The fifine offers 2 channels at 44100 or
-# 48000 and nothing else, so bare hw:0,0 dies on "Channels count non
-# available" before a frame is read. plughw puts ALSA's downmix and resampler
-# in front. Any replacement microphone wants the same treatment.
+# whole pipeline is canonical in. Neither microphone offers it, so bare hw
+# dies on "Channels count non available" before a frame is read. plughw puts
+# ALSA's downmix and resampler in front. Any replacement wants the same.
+#
+# The Scarlett measured RMS 0.003 against 0.14 on the onboard input, so its
+# front-panel gain is the thing to raise if she mishears. That is a knob, not
+# a control ALSA exposes. The two loud devices, the onboard ALC897 and the
+# camera, both clip at peak 1.0 and are worse candidates, not better ones.
 Environment=LD_LIBRARY_PATH=%h/.local/lib
 ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/mavwaked \
-  -device plughw:0,0 \
+  -device plughw:CARD=Gen,DEV=0 \
   -addr 127.0.0.1:9100 \
   -lang ru \
   -vad-model %h/.local/share/maven/models/silero_vad.onnx \
+  -wake-model %h/.local/share/maven/models/maven_wakeword.onnx \
+  -wake-mel %h/.local/share/maven/models/melspectrogram.onnx \
+  -wake-embed %h/.local/share/maven/models/embedding_model.onnx \
   -onnx-lib %h/.local/lib/libonnxruntime.so
 Restart=on-failure
 RestartSec=5

docs/deployment.md

@@ -170,7 +170,19 @@ The device is `plughw:0,0` and not `hw:0,0`. The fifine offers 2 channels at
 44100 or 48000 and nothing else, and mavwaked asks arecord for 16kHz mono. Bare
 `hw` dies on "Channels count non available" before a frame is read.
 
-There is no wake word yet (V-487 stage two), so the loop runs open.
+The three `-wake-` flags require the keyword "Мэйвен" (V-487 stage two). Drop
+them and the loop runs open, which is what it did before. The threshold is the
+binary's default of 0.999 and is not passed. Over 65 minutes of held-out
+Russian speech it woke her 0.9 times an hour against 2.8 at 0.99. That cost one
+lost render out of 126 (`docs/evals/2026-08-09-wake-word.md`).
+
+The three sessions are pinned to one thread each. onnxruntime otherwise sizes
+its pool to every core and spins between runs, which took mavwaked from 68% of
+one core to 335%. With the cap it sits at 81%, so the gate costs about 13%.
+
+A keyword shorter than 1.32s can be heard too late to be used. The head scores
+1.28s of audio, and the VAD has closed the utterance by then.
+"Мэйвен, <request>" is unaffected. A bare "Мэйвен" is the case that fails.
 
 mavwaked connects at startup and holds the conn, so a nudge routed to voice
 reaches the speaker before he has said anything (V-671). It used to connect

docs/evals/2026-08-09-wake-word.md

@@ -94,6 +94,14 @@ the head the whole request to peak during. A bare "Мэйвен" with nothing af
 it is the case that fails. One fix would hold an ignored utterance for a grace
 period and ship it if the keyword lands late. It is not built.
 
+## What it costs the workstation
+
+Under systemd on workpc, mavwaked sat at 335% of a core with the gate on and
+68% with only silero. onnxruntime sizes its thread pool to every core and spins
+between runs, and this gate runs three graphs twelve times a second. Pinning
+all three sessions to one thread brought it to 81%, so the keyword costs about
+13% of one core. The three graphs each finish in well under 80ms that way.
+
 ## What was not measured
 
 No room recordings. Every negative above is a clean corpus clip. This gate