spotidry 0.0.12

A boring Spotify CLI client

Spotidry

Spotidry is a deliberately minimal Spotify CLI for status bars, hotkeys, and quick playback control.

It prints the current track in a compact one-line format, lets you toggle the current song in your Liked Songs, and exposes the playback controls you need without turning your terminal into a full music client.

What it does well

• Print the current Spotify status in a customizable format.
• Toggle the current track in your Liked Songs with a single command.
• Control playback with play/pause, next, and previous actions.
• Scroll long artist/title strings cleanly in narrow status bars.
• Reuse recent playback data to keep 1 Hz status lines responsive and avoid unnecessary Spotify requests.

Installation

Install from PyPI with uv:

uv tool install spotidry
spotidry --setup

Or install with pip:

pip install --user spotidry
spotidry --setup

Spotidry is tested on Linux across Python 3.10 through 3.14.

Spotify setup

Run spotidry --setup to create the config file interactively. The command opens the Spotify Developer Dashboard and prompts you for the values it needs.

1. Create a Spotify app at My Dashboard.
2. Make sure the app has Web API enabled.
3. Set a redirect URI such as http://127.0.0.1:9999.
4. Paste the Client ID, Client Secret, and Redirect URI into the setup prompt.

If you prefer to create the config manually, write this file to ~/.config/spotidry/spotidry.yaml:

client_id: '<ID>'
client_secret: '<SECRET>'
redirect_uri: 'http://127.0.0.1:9999'
output_format: '{play_symbol} {artist_song} {liked_symbol}'

# Optional: scrolling for long titles (useful for 1 Hz status lines)
max_width: 30
scroll_speed: 0.5
scroll_gap: '   '

# Optional: reuse recent playback data between CLI invocations
status_cache_seconds: 5

On the first normal run, Spotidry opens a browser window so you can authorize access to your Spotify account.

Configuration

Output placeholders

output_format supports these placeholders:

• {artist}: artist name
• {song}: track title
• {artist_song}: "{artist} - {song}", including scrolling when enabled
• {play_symbol}: playback indicator (▶ or ⏸)
• {liked_symbol}: liked indicator (❤ or ♡)

The default output format is:

{play_symbol} {artist_song} {liked_symbol}

Caching and rate limits

status_cache_seconds controls how often Spotidry asks Spotify for fresh playback data. The default of 5 works well for 1 Hz status bars while keeping API traffic low.

• Increase it if your status line refreshes frequently and you still hit rate limits.
• Set it to 0 to fetch fresh data on every invocation.

Recent playback data is cached at ~/.cache/spotidry/status_cache.json. If Spotify temporarily replies with 429 Too Many Requests, Spotidry can keep showing the most recent cached status instead of waiting on a long retry window.

Usage

Common commands:

spotidry
spotidry --save
spotidry --play
spotidry --next
spotidry --previous
spotidry --volume-show
spotidry --volume-up
spotidry --volume-down
spotidry --setup

CLI help:

usage: spotidry [-h] [-v] [-s] [-S] [-p] [-n] [--previous] [--volume-show]
                [--volume-up] [--volume-down]

Spotify CLI client

options:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --version  show program's version number and exit
  -s, --save     toggle liked track status
  -S, --setup    setup spotidry configuration
  -p, --play     play/pause track
  -n, --next     play next track
  --previous     play previous track/skip to beginning of current track
  --volume-show  print current device volume
  --volume-up    increase current device volume by 10%
  --volume-down  decrease current device volume by 10%

The volume commands print only the current volume. They do not add volume to the default spotidry status line.

If you need to re-authorize Spotify, delete the auth cache at ~/.cache/spotidry.json and run Spotidry again. If you are upgrading from an older release, re-authorizing may be necessary for the new playback-state scope used by the volume commands.

Tmux integration

Example for the popular .tmux config:

tmux_conf_theme_status_right='#(flock -n /tmp/spotidry.lock spotidry 2>/dev/null; sleep 1) #{prefix}#{pairing} #{?battery_status, #{battery_status},}#{?battery_bar, #{battery_bar},}#{?battery_percentage, #{battery_percentage},} , %R , %d %b | #{username}#{root} | #{hostname} '

This redraws once per second for smooth scrolling. With the default status_cache_seconds: 5, Spotify is still refreshed only about once every 5 seconds.

If you do not need 1 Hz scrolling, increase the shell sleep to reduce API traffic even further.

Polybar integration

Add this module to ~/.config/polybar/config.ini:

[module/spotidry]
type = custom/script
exec = ~/.local/bin/spotidry
exec-if = test -f ~/.local/bin/spotidry
click-left = ~/.local/bin/spotidry --next 2> /dev/null
click-middle = ~/.local/bin/spotidry --save 2> /dev/null
click-right = ~/.local/bin/spotidry --play 2> /dev/null
interval = 1

This uses interval = 1 for smooth scrolling. With the default cache settings, Spotify is still refreshed only about once every 5 seconds.

To reduce API traffic further, either raise status_cache_seconds or increase the Polybar interval.

Development

Set up a local development environment:

git clone https://github.com/mikeboiko/spotidry.git
cd spotidry
uv sync --extra test

The repository pins the local development interpreter to Python 3.14 via .python-version, so uv will pick that version automatically when available.

Useful development commands:

uv run pytest -q
uv run basedpyright spotidry
uv run spotidry --help

Release automation

GitHub Actions handles validation and publishing:

• Tests runs on every push, pull request, and manual dispatch.
• Publish to PyPI runs after a successful Tests run on master.
• A release is only created when spotidry/__init__.py changes and the version is bumped.

Routine commits should leave spotidry/__init__.py and CHANGELOG.md alone. Update them together only when preparing an actual release.

When a release is triggered, GitHub Actions will:

1. Create and push the matching Git tag.
2. Build the source distribution and wheel.
3. Validate the package with twine check.
4. Create a GitHub Release with the built artifacts.
5. Publish the package to PyPI.

Make sure the repository has a PYPI_API_TOKEN secret configured.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.