instawow 1.2.5

A CLI for managing World of Warcraft add-ons.

instawow is a package manager for World of Warcraft written in Python. It can be used to install, remove and update add-ons from Curse, WoWInterface and Tukui.

Installation

It is recommended to install instawow in an isolated environment. One option is pipx:

pipx install instawow

Installing with pip is also supported:

pip3 install instawow

Usage

You can install add-ons by their Curse project ID or slug, or their WoWInterface ID, or even by their URL. All of the following will install Molinari:

instawow install curse:20338
instawow install curse:molinari
instawow install https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/molinari
instawow install https://wow.curseforge.com/projects/molinari
instawow install wowi:13188
instawow install https://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info13188-Molinari.html

By default instawow will install the latest file to have been released. You may also install the latest file that has been uploaded (be it stable, or beta or alpha quality) by passing --strategy=latest. This option only affects CurseForge packages.

You can uninstall add-ons with:

instawow remove <add-on>

You can update all of your add-ons in one go with:

instawow update

… or any individual add-on the same way you’d install or remove it:

instawow update <add-on>

You can list installed add-ons with instawow list and add-ons that predate the venerable instawow with instawow list-uncontrolled. list-uncontrolled will attempt to extract Curse and WoWI IDs from TOC files to put you on a path towards instalightment.

Non-destructive operations can be invoked with partial package slugs, e.g. instawow info moli will attempt to match ‘moli’ with curse:molinari.

Extras

BitBar integration

instawow ships with a BitBar plug-in for macOS, which you can use to update add-ons from the menu bar. To install the plug-in run instawow extras bitbar install.

WeakAuras aura updater

instawow contains a WeakAuras updater modelled after WeakAuras Companion. To use the updater and provided that you have WeakAuras installed:

instawow extras weakauras build-companion -a <your account name>
instawow install instawow:weakauras-companion

Building the companion add-on is expensive, which is why the operation is not baked into the normal workflow. (For reference, parsing WeakAuras’ saved variables takes about 15 seconds on my machine.) Therefore you will have to run instawow extras weakauras build-companion prior to instawow update to receive aura updates.

WebSocket server

A WebSocket client can be used to operate instawow in lieu of the command line through a JSON-RPC API. To start the WebSocket server, run instawow serve. The API does not implement JSON-RPC batch calls; request grouping must be done client-side.

Caveats

Auto-detection

instawow has no way to know about add-ons it did not itself install. The Twitch (née Curse) client uses a proprietary fingerprinting algorithm to reconcile add-ons installed locally with add-ons they keep on their servers. Even if the fingerprint had been reverse-engineered, I’d be loath to adopt it. Ideologically, because it was born of a desire to monopolise the add-on distribution market; and, practically, because we could never know when Curse might pull the rug from under our feet. The Minion app also implements a similar though less sophisticated fingerprinting technique.

Metadata sourcing

Originally, instawow relied on the official feeds provided by Curse. Curse retired the feeds on 8 June 2018 and – for a period – instawow would scrape the CurseForge website. The alternative would have been to use the old XML-like API. Because the API was not built for third-party use, it had not been isolated from user accounts (cf. GitHub integrations). If users were to log into the API, instawow would acquire full access to their account. Authentication was also complicated by the ongoing Curse account migration to Twitch and is (or should be) unnecessary for the simple use case of installing and updating add-ons. Thankfully, Twitch migrated to an unauthenticated API interally in Q2 2019, which we have adopted for our own use. This is similar to what Minion, the WoWInterface-branded add-on manager, has been doing for years. The good people at Tukui provide an API for public use.

Discovery

instawow’s purpose is to facilitate add-on management and not discovery. It does not seek to drive people away from add-on portals; but to make installing, updating and removing add-ons found on portals hassle-free for those of us who are (ever so slightly) proficient with the command line and do not particularly revel in using bloatware or inhabiting walled gardens. It is also important to note that the Twitch client communicates with Google Analytics, Scorecard Research and Nielsen without user consent, which is unacceptable to me and my European brethren.

Migration

lcurse

You can migrate your add-on management setup from lcurse by running the following command (this will overwrite your installed add-ons):

cat ~/.lcurse/addons.json | jq --raw-output '.addons[].uri' |
    tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' | xargs instawow install -o

Development

Fork and clone the repo, cd and:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -e .

Happy hacking.

Contributing

Bug reports and fixes are welcome. Do open an issue before committing to making any significant changes.