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EnglishWhat is petersalomonsen.com?
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petersalomonsen.com is the personal project site of Peter Salomonsen, a developer who works at the intersection of code and music. It is not a product or a service you sign up for — it is a portfolio and writing hub where he publishes articles, live demos, and videos about WebAssembly music and synthesis, browser-based live coding, wasm-git, and NEAR blockchain smart contracts. He is also the author of Building and Deploying WebAssembly Apps. If you want to see what WebAssembly can do for audio and creative tooling, or follow along with the code behind the demos, this is the place to look.
The core themes
The site's tagline — "WebAssembly music, synthesis and NEAR smart contracts" — maps directly onto four recurring topics:
- WebAssembly music and synthesis. Tracks where the notes, the synth instruments, and even the visuals are code compiled to WebAssembly and running live in the browser.
- Live coding in the browser. An environment called WebAssembly Music where songs can be played and edited live, with Faust DSP code compiled to AssemblyScript (a project he calls
faust2as). - wasm-git. Git running inside WebAssembly, used to give web apps version history and to sync repositories stored on the NEAR blockchain.
- NEAR smart contracts. Blockchain-backed storage and sync, including loading demo content directly from git repositories on NEAR.
What you'll actually find there
The site is organized as a running log of projects, each with links to sources, live demos, and video:
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| WebAssembly Music tunes | New tracks and videos posted regularly, playable at webassemblymusic.pages.dev |
| "Prompted" (Sept 2026) | An italo-disco instrumental in D minor where notes, Faust synth instruments, and dancers are all WebAssembly code; the full 131-instruction agent session is published alongside the sources |
| "Who really controls your data?" (July 2026) | An article on bringing Git to web apps with wasm-git and client-side encryption, giving users custody of their own data |
| Agentic composition (July 2026) | A full track made by directing an in-browser AI agent — the agent writes and edits code on instruction, but Salomonsen still directs the arrangement and plays patterns on a MIDI keyboard |
| IFC 2026 (June 2026) | A talk at the International Faust Conference in Cannes on compiling Faust DSP to AssemblyScript/WebAssembly; the concert demo loads from git repos on NEAR via wasm-git |
| wasm-git with OPFS (April 2026) | A demo running entirely in the browser using OPFS for storage with NEAR-backed sync |
How to use the site
There is no account, download, or pricing to worry about — it is a reading and demo site. A practical path:
- Start with the live demos. Open webassemblymusic.pages.dev to play and edit songs directly in the browser; this shows the concept faster than any description.
- Read the write-ups for the parts that interest you. The "Who really controls your data?" article is the entry point for the wasm-git and data-custody thread; the "Prompted" and agentic composition posts cover the AI-assisted music workflow.
- Follow the source links. Each project links to its repository (for example,
wasm-music-prompted), so you can read the actual code rather than just the summary. - Watch the videos if you prefer seeing the tools in action, including the IFC 2026 concert recording (his set starts at 1:27:30).
Who it's for
This site is most useful if you are a developer interested in WebAssembly as an audio platform, in live-coding music in the browser, or in running Git and blockchain-backed storage client-side. It is less relevant if you are looking for a commercial product, a library with documentation and support, or a general music site — the content is one person's experiments and writing, presented as articles, demos, and videos rather than as a maintained product.