silver-music-notifier

Track a list of artists and get notified of their new music releases from MusicBrainz. Drive it from the terminal, or launch a local web UI (built with silver-ui).

Install

npm install -g silver-music-notifier

Requires Node.js 22.12.0 or newer.

This requires a working build toolchain for better-sqlite3 (the native SQLite driver), which is built automatically on install.

MusicBrainz contact (required)

MusicBrainz requires every API client to identify a contact (an email or URL) in its User-Agent, and throttles or blocks requests without one. The first time you run most CLI commands, the CLI prompts you for a contact and saves it. Non-network setup commands such as config set, clear-data, and dismiss can run before the contact is configured. You can also set it ahead of time:

silver-music-notifier config set musicbrainz.contact [email protected]

or in the web UI's Settings view after the app has launched. In a non-interactive context (no TTY), commands that require the contact error with this guidance instead of prompting.

Usage

Web UI

silver-music-notifier web            # starts on http://localhost:3001 and opens a browser
silver-music-notifier web --port 8080 --no-open

The UI has three views:

• Releases — a feed of every known release-group, newest first, with a Refresh button and a "New" badge on releases discovered in the last refresh.
• Artists — search MusicBrainz and add/remove the artists you follow.
• Settings — set the MusicBrainz contact (required), choose notification methods, and configure SMTP for email.

CLI

silver-music-notifier add "Radiohead"          # search MusicBrainz, pick a match
silver-music-notifier add "Boards of Canada" -y  # add the top match, no prompt
silver-music-notifier add "X" --mbid <mbid>    # add an exact MBID
silver-music-notifier list                     # list tracked artists
silver-music-notifier remove "Radiohead"       # stop tracking (by name or MBID)
silver-music-notifier refresh                  # fetch releases + notify on new ones
silver-music-notifier refresh --no-notify      # fetch without sending email
silver-music-notifier releases --new --limit 20
silver-music-notifier dismiss <release-mbid>   # hide a release's New badge
silver-music-notifier config get               # show settings
silver-music-notifier config set notify.email true
silver-music-notifier clear-data               # delete artists/releases, keep settings

Notifications

When refresh finds releases it has never seen before, it can notify you two ways:

• In-page badges — "New" badges in the web UI (always available).
• Email — one HTML email per new release, sent once SMTP is configured and the email toggle is on. Configure it in the Settings view or via config set smtp.host, smtp.port, smtp.secure, smtp.user, smtp.pass, smtp.from, and smtp.to.

Adding a new artist refreshes that artist immediately, but treats the existing catalog as your starting baseline: it does not send email for those releases or mark them with "New" badges.

refresh is manual — run it from the CLI, the web button, or your own scheduler (cron, systemd timer, etc.).

Cron refresh

To check for new releases on a schedule, first make sure the CLI has the required MusicBrainz contact and any notification settings configured:

silver-music-notifier config set musicbrainz.contact [email protected]
silver-music-notifier config set notify.email true   # optional, if SMTP is configured

Then add a cron entry. This example refreshes every day at 9:00 AM:

0 9 * * * /usr/bin/env silver-music-notifier refresh >> "$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier/cron.log" 2>&1

If cron cannot find the command, use the full path from command -v silver-music-notifier. To use a custom database location, set SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR in the cron line:

0 9 * * *
SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR="$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier" /usr/bin/env silver-music-notifier refresh >> "$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier/cron.log" 2>&1

Data & configuration

State lives in a single SQLite file (data.db) in your per-user data directory:

• Linux: $XDG_DATA_HOME/silver-music-notifier (usually ~/.local/share/silver-music-notifier)
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/silver-music-notifier
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\silver-music-notifier\Data

Override the location with the SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR environment variable.

Note: SMTP credentials (including the password) are stored in plaintext in that local SQLite file. This is a single-user local tool; treat the data directory accordingly.

Notification methods (in-page / email) and the MusicBrainz contact are configured in the web UI's Settings view or via silver-music-notifier config set … — not through environment variables.