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WKVRCProxy is a tiny Windows console daemon that swaps VRChat's bundled yt-dlp.exe for a patched build that asks our resolver server (whyknot.dev) for help, and falls back to the vanilla yt-dlp if anything is unreachable.

The README is the pitch; this wiki covers the operational details.

How it works (60 seconds)

1. The watchdog (WKVRCProxy.exe) backs up VRChat's yt-dlp.exe to yt-dlp-og.exe and replaces it with a patched build.
2. The patched yt-dlp.exe connects to the watchdog over a local named pipe (\\.\pipe\WKVRCProxy.resolve) and asks for resolution.
3. The watchdog forwards the request through a persistent WebSocket to whyknot.dev, returns the resolved URL, and the patched binary hands it to AVPro.
4. Fallback path: if the server can't resolve, the watchdog isn't running, or the pipe isn't there, the patched yt-dlp.exe execs yt-dlp-og.exe and you get vanilla yt-dlp behaviour. The watchdog absent does not break VRChat.

The watchdog also pins 127.0.0.1 localhost.youtube.com in your hosts file (load-bearing for public-instance support; idle when this tool isn't running) and periodically restores the patched yt-dlp.exe if VRChat overwrites it during launch.

For users

• Quick Start — install, first launch, and what to do when something fails
• Update and Uninstall — how the bundled updater and uninstaller behave
• Troubleshooting — common failure modes

For maintainers

• Build Pipeline — build.ps1 phase by phase, version stamping, the bundled-fallback fetch
• Development — build from source, contribute
• Engineering Standards — coding rules contributors MUST follow
• Changelog — release history