itu-sync

A small Python tool that replaces the ITU-Sync desktop app. It lets you pick an ITU meeting and work with its documents from the terminal:

• Sync meetings — refresh the list of meetings from ITU and browse it.
• Sync documents — download a meeting's documents (English) over FTPS, optionally restricted to one or more document types.
• List documents — show a meeting's documents without downloading them.

Every command works both interactively (guided pickers) and non-interactively (flags for scripting), including a --latest shortcut.

Very quick one-line usage:

# sync all contributions and TDs from latest SG12 meeting
uvx itu-sync sync --latest --group SG12 --type C,TD

Done! Read on to find out more.

Disclaimer

Reqiurements

• Python 3.10 or later
• An ITU TIES account

Installation

Install with uvx:

uvx itu-sync --help

Or install with pipx:

pipx install itu-sync

Or, with pip:

pip3 install --user itu-sync

We assume you will be using uvx, otherwise just run itu-sync directly without uvx after installing from pipx or pip.

Usage

The command provides four main subcommands:

itu-sync meetings  # list meetings
itu-sync sync      # sync documents of a meeting
itu-sync list      # list documents of a meeting
itu-sync config    # show current configuration or edit it

First time setup

The first time you run any command in a terminal, a short guided setup asks for each setting and saves your answers. Example:

$ itu-sync meetings
i Let's set up itu-sync. Use the arrow keys to choose options.
? Folder to store documents in: /Users/you/Documents/ITU
? Default sector: (Use arrow keys)
   ITU
   ITU-D
   ITU-R
 » ITU-T
? Default language to download:
 » E — English
   F — French
   S — Spanish
   A — Arabic
   C — Chinese
   R — Russian
? TIES account (username): yourname
? Store your TIES password now? (Y/n)
? TIES password: ********
i Checking your TIES credentials…
✓ Credentials verified.
✓ Setup complete. Change any setting later with 'itu-sync config'.

Examples

Let's say we want to sync the latest Study Group 12 meeting's Contributions and Temporary Documents (TDs). With the interactive guided setup, we can just run:

itu-sync sync --latest --group SG12 --type C,TD

That's all!

Check itu-sync sync --help for more options.

Some more examples!

List meetings (newest first):

itu-sync meetings --sector ITU-T --filter SG12

Sync the latest SG 12 meeting's Contributions and Temporary Documents:

itu-sync sync --sector ITU-T --group SG12 --latest --type C,TD

Sync the Temporary Documents of a specific meeting:

itu-sync sync --meeting 260609 --type TD

List a meeting's TDs without downloading:

itu-sync list --group SG12 --latest --type TD

Liaison statements are Temporary Documents marked LS/i (incoming) or LS/o (outgoing) in their title. The LS type selects just those, and you can narrow to one direction with LS/i or LS/o:

# all liaison statements of the latest SG12 meeting
itu-sync list --group SG12 --latest --type LS

# download only the incoming liaison statements
itu-sync sync --group SG12 --latest --type LS/i

A plain --type TD (or the default, which lists everything) still includes liaison statements; it just shows them marked LS/i or LS/o instead of TD.

Changing the config

Re-run the guided setup, or set any value individually:

itu-sync config --setup                  # run the guided setup again
itu-sync config --show                   # print the current settings
itu-sync config --user yourname          # set the TIES account
itu-sync config --drive ~/Documents/ITU  # set the storage folder
itu-sync config --sector ITU-T           # set the default sector
itu-sync config --language E             # set the default language
itu-sync config --password               # prompt for and store the password

Running itu-sync config with no options shows the current settings (or, on a fresh install, launches the guided setup).

Non-secret settings live in ~/.config/itu-sync/config.json. The TIES password is stored in your operating system's keyring (Keychain on macOS), never in plaintext.

Non-interactive use

In scripts or CI there is no terminal to prompt at, so the guided setup is skipped. Supply what you need through flags and environment variables; each value is resolved in this order:

• TIES account: the stored config, then ITU_TIES_USER, then --user.
• TIES password: the keyring, then the ITU_TIES_PASSWORD environment variable.
• Storage folder: the stored config, or --drive on any command.

When a required account or password is missing in non-interactive mode, the command exits with a clear error rather than hanging on a prompt.

How it works

Meeting catalogs are four public XML files fetched over HTTPS from https://www.itu.int/net/epub/ITU-Sync/ (no authentication). Documents are mirrored from confsynch.itu.int:990 over implicit FTPS, authenticated with your TIES account. By default the FTPS server certificate is not verified (to match the old app); pass --verify-cert to enforce verification.

By default only English documents are downloaded; set a different default language during setup or with itu-sync config --language, or override per run with itu-sync sync --lang fr. The language code is the last hyphen-delimited token of the filename (e.g. ...-E.docx). Index and metadata files (.xml, .js, .css, .png) are always kept.

Development

uv run ruff check
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run ty check
uv run pytest

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md.