@ansango/lastfm-cli

CLI for the Last.fm API, built on @ansango/lastfm-api.

Read-only by default. Loads credentials from a standard .env file via dotenv (search order: $LASTFM_CLI_ENV_FILE, ./.env, ~/.lastfm-cli/.env). Emits JSON to stdout, errors to stderr.

Installation

npm install -g @ansango/lastfm-cli
# or, from GitHub (no npm publish needed):
npm install -g github:ansango/lastfm-cli

Credentials

The CLI reads LASTFM_API_KEY from a standard .env file using the dotenv parser (so escapes, multi-line values, $VAR interpolation and export prefix all work).

Search order (first hit wins, unless LASTFM_CLI_ENV_FILE is set):

1. $LASTFM_CLI_ENV_FILE — absolute path override.
2. ./.env in the current working directory (the dotenv default).
3. ~/.lastfm-cli/.env — project-scoped fallback.

LASTFM_API_KEY=your_api_key
LASTFM_BASE_URL=https://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/   # optional

Variables already exported in your shell always win over the file. If none of the above provide LASTFM_API_KEY, the CLI exits with code 2.

Get an API key at https://www.last.fm/api/account/create.

Usage

lastfm <namespace> <method> [key=value ...]
lastfm <namespace> <method> --json '{...}'
lastfm man [namespace | namespace.method] [--markdown] [--all]
lastfm methods [namespace]
lastfm help [namespace.method]
lastfm config

Namespaces

user, album, artist, track, tag, chart, geo, library.

Built-in manual

lastfm man ships a curated reference for every method this CLI exposes — parameters, types, required/optional, and an example invocation.

lastfm man                          # top-level index
lastfm man artist                   # list methods in a namespace
lastfm man artist.getInfo           # full reference for one method
lastfm man --markdown artist        # same listing, emitted as markdown
lastfm man --all --markdown > MAN.md  # dump every method as a single markdown doc

Examples

# Top artists this week for a user
lastfm user getTopArtists user=ansango period=7day limit=20

# Artist info + similar
lastfm artist getInfo artist=Radiohead
lastfm artist getSimilar artist=Radiohead limit=10

# Album lookup
lastfm album getInfo artist=Radiohead album="OK Computer"

# Top tracks by country
lastfm geo getTopTracks country=spain limit=20

# Global chart
lastfm chart getTopArtists limit=50

Periods for user.getTop*: overall | 7day | 1month | 3month | 6month | 12month.

Read-only enforcement

track.scrobble and track.scrobbleMany (the canonical Last.fm names, plus their deprecated aliases track.postTrackScrobble and track.postBatchTrackScrobble) exist on the underlying client but require an authenticated session. This CLI does not support writes — calls to those methods (or any future write method we add to the blocklist) return a clear error:

ERROR: Method "track.scrobble" is an authenticated write operation. This CLI is read-only.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	success
1	generic error (bad args, unknown method, etc.)
2	LASTFM_API_KEY is not set
3	Last.fm API returned an error (rate limit, invalid key, …)

Development

git clone https://github.com/ansango/lastfm-cli
cd lastfm-cli
npm install
npm run build       # tsc + shebang
npm test            # node:test runner via tsx

Related

• @ansango/lastfm-api — the underlying Last.fm client (this CLI is a thin wrapper on top of it).

License

MIT