How I Added Screenshare Sound Notifications to an Open Source Chat App

While contributing to Sharkord — a self-hosted, Discord-like communication platform built with TypeScript — I implemented a feature where a sound plays when a remote user starts or stops screensharing in a voice channel. In this article I'll walk through how I explored the codebase, matched the existing sound patterns, and wired everything together. The Problem Sharkord already had sounds for many voice channel events: User joins/leaves a voice channel Muting/unmuting mic Enabling/disabling webcam Own user starting/stopping screenshare But there was no sound when a remote user (someone else) started or stopped screensharing. You'd have no audio feedback that someone else just started sharing their screen. Exploring the Codebase Before writing any code I searched for how existing sounds worked. I found the sound system in: apps/client/src/features/server/sounds/actions.ts The project uses the Web Audio API — no external sound files needed! All sounds are generated programmatically using