clippercard is an unofficial python client for clippercard.com, written in Python.

Why

Not only is the clippercard web site a inaccessible by API, its behind-the-scene's HTML structure and HTTP protocol is not semantically structured. This library aims to provide an unofficial but sensible interface to the official web service.

Project Goal

I enjoy the actual user experience of ClipperCard on buses and trains. My complaints about the service are purely isolated to its web interface. I saw a problem, and I solved it for myself, that's all.

As an advocate for data accessibility, I believe our dollars, our votes, our voices and our actions can nudge institutions in the direction we'd like them to go. At Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission, I am sure there are a lot of great people doing good work to the best of their ability, and within the context of prioritization, organizational structure and resources available to them.

I encourage the staff of MTA reading this project to see this effort as a nudge for a public and official API. The moment they put up an API that obsoletes this project, I will happily direct followers to the official solution. If you'd like them to increase attention to data accessibility, you can send them an email at info@mtc.ca.gov and tell them I sent you.

Features

• Profile Data
• Multiple cards' data
• For each card, multiple products and balances

I don't have access to all products loadable on the ClipperCard, so transit product variant support is limited to what I personally use for now. If you'd like me to add support for your product, send me the page source from your account home page: https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/account.html

Security and Privacy

It's important to point out that:

• This project does not collect your personal information or clippercard.com login credentials.
• This project is not a hosted service, your data is not stored or sent to any 3rd party service.

For now, this project is targeted at other software developers, who are capable of assessing my source code for security implications.

Installation

Install as a user-wide CLI tool via uv:

$ uv tool install clippercard

clippercard requires Python 3.11 or newer.

This makes the clippercard command available globally without activating a virtual environment.

Usage

import clippercard
session = clippercard.Session('username', 'password')
print(session.profile_info)
for c in session.cards:
    print(c)

You also get a super convenient command line binary clippercard::

$ clippercard -h # see usage information
$ clippercard summary
+------------------------------------------------------+
|            name | Golden Gate Rider                  |
|           email | goldengate-rider@example.com       |
| mailing_address | 1 Main St, San Francisco, CA 94105 |
|           phone | 415-555-5555                       |
|       alt_phone | 650-555-5555                       |
| primary_payment | Mastercard ending in 1234          |
|  backup_payment | Amex ending in 9876                |
+------------------------------------------------------+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| # | Name                      | Serial     | Type  | Status | Products                |
|---+---------------------------+------------+-------+--------+-------------------------|
| 1 | Primary, card #2021234134 | 2021234134 | ADULT | Active | Cash Value: $195.00     |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Current Passes: None    |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Pending Passes: None    |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Reload: $255 - Autoload |
| 2 | Backup, card #2021234156  | 2021234156 | ADULT | Active | Cash Value: $200.00     |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Current Passes: None    |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Pending Passes: None    |
|   |                           |            |       |        | Reload: $200 - Autoload |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you wish to use clippercard without specifying username/password on the CLI, create a file ~/.config/clippercard/credentials.ini with this format::

[default]
username = goldengate88@example.com
password = superseekrit

You may toggle accounts via the --account flag on the command line to access one of several configs in the file::

[default]
username = <replace_with_your_email>
password = <replace_with_your_password>

[other]
username = <replace_with_login_email>
password = <replace_with_login_password>

The other credentials can then be accessed via::

$ clippercard summary --account=other

Non-default accounts keep separate saved login cookies in account-specific files such as ~/.config/clippercard/auth.other.cookies.

On macOS, you can store login credentials and saved cookies in Keychain instead of local files.

First-time Keychain setup

Pass the Clipper username once on the command line. Omit --password and paste it when prompted (hidden on a TTY, or one line on stdin). After a successful password login, the CLI writes those credentials into Keychain and prints a confirmation:

$ clippercard summary --credential-store keychain --cookie-store keychain \
    --username goldengate88@example.com
Paste Clipper password for goldengate88@example.com:
Saved login credentials to macOS Keychain. You can delete the plaintext username/password from the config file if you no longer need them.

You can still pass --password if you want, but that leaves the secret in your shell history.

macOS may prompt to allow the security tool to use Keychain. Choose Allow or Always Allow.

Do not skip --username on this first run. If Keychain is empty, the CLI otherwise looks for credentials.ini or offers to create it.

If you already have a credentials.ini, you can seed Keychain from that file instead:

$ clippercard summary --credential-store keychain --cookie-store keychain

Credentials are written only after a real password login succeeds. Cookie reuse does not count, because that path never checks the username/password. If you already have a saved cookie file and this first run says it is reusing cookies, delete that file and run the command again:

$ rm ~/.config/clippercard/auth.cookies
$ clippercard summary --credential-store keychain --cookie-store keychain \
    --username goldengate88@example.com

Later runs

If there is no credentials.ini, later runs pick Keychain up automatically:

$ clippercard summary

If you keep a config file, set the stores there so you do not need the flags every time. After Keychain has the password, you can omit username / password:

[default]
credential_store = keychain
cookie_store = keychain

CLI flags still override the config file. If you omit both the flags and the config keys, the CLI keeps using credentials.ini and the cookie file when those exist, and only falls back to Keychain when the matching file is missing.

Keychain item names and cleanup

Keychain items are named clippercard.credentials and clippercard.cookies, with the account section as the Keychain account (default, other, and so on).

Cookie migration copies an existing file jar into Keychain the first time that Keychain item is missing. It does not delete credentials.ini or auth.cookies. Leave those files in place until you have confirmed Keychain login works, then delete the plaintext password if you want.

To remove saved Keychain items later:

$ security delete-generic-password -s clippercard.credentials -a default
$ security delete-generic-password -s clippercard.cookies -a default

Use -a other for a non-default --account.

For scripts and agents, request structured JSON instead of the default table output:

$ clippercard summary --output json
{
  "profile": {
    "name": "Go*** Ga*** Ri***",
    "email": "g***@example.com"
  },
  "cards": [
    {
      "serial_number": "******4134",
      "nickname": "Primary, card ending in 4134",
      "type": "ADULT",
      "status": "Active",
      "products": [
        {
          "name": "Cash Value",
          "value": "$195.00"
        }
      ],
      "features": [
        {
          "name": "Reload",
          "value": "$255 - Autoload"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

When stdout is piped, summary defaults to JSON for Unix tooling:

$ clippercard summary | jq .

Use --show-private with either output format to include unredacted profile and card details.

More examples

If you have a transit pass that isn't recognized by this tool, you can privately share a copy of your account page view-source: with the maintainer.

Contribute

1. fork the repo to your personal GitHub account
2. install dev dependencies: just sync
3. make your changes in your repo
4. for Python source, follow local style consistency and PEP8
5. format and lint your code: just format and just lint
6. run tests on the current Python version: just test
7. run tests across all supported Python versions: just test-all
8. add unit tests, make sure they pass
9. remember to bump the version number wherever applies
10. add a new line for your revision to CHANGES.txt describing your change
11. send a pull request to https://github.com/clippercard/clippercard-python w/problem or goal statement and implementation details
12. respond to all pull request code review requests in your branch and submit the requested changes in new commits
13. communicate with the maintainers to merge the finalized pull request and publish your changes