ani-cli web

Local web UI for a system-wide ani-cli install.

Current version: 0.46.2

What it does

• Search anime in sub or dub, with poster-style results shown below the selection panel and the first English alternate title when available
• Queue downloads with folder, quality, media type, season, and episode controls
• Optionally retry failed ani-cli downloads with system-wide anikoto-cli as a backup downloader
• Track shows in a watchlist with Watching, Planned, Finished, and Dropped categories
• Expose a small JSON summary endpoint for Homepage dashboard widgets
• Refresh watchlist episode counts manually or on a schedule
• Auto-download missing episodes for Watching entries after later refreshes, with a per-show Source name override for ani-cli search
• Move fully completed libraries into Jellyfin TV or movie folders with a tracked background handoff job
• Send optional Discord webhook notifications

Pages

• /: Search and queue downloads, with poster-card search results below the selection box and alternate English titles under the main name when available
• /queue: Monitor jobs, inspect logs, retry failed jobs, remove finished jobs
• /watchlist: Track shows, refresh them, download all available episodes, and manage auto-download settings such as Source name, library Name, season, and episode offset
• /config: Save defaults, schedule refreshes, configure Jellyfin and Discord, monitor Jellyfin handoff progress, and view runtime info and the changelog

Quick start

Requirements:

• ani-cli installed and available in PATH
• Optional: anikoto-cli installed in PATH if you want backup downloads
• Common runtime tools used by ani-cli and anikoto-cli, especially curl, ffmpeg, fzf, grep, jq, mpv, openssl, sed, aria2c, and yt-dlp

Run locally:

./ani-cli-web

Open:

http://127.0.0.1:8421/

Useful flags and env:

• ./ani-cli-web --debug
• ANI_CLI_WEB_HOST=0.0.0.0
• ANI_CLI_WEB_PORT=8421
• ANI_CLI_BIN=/path/to/ani-cli

Build args:

• ANI_CLI_BRANCH=master
• ANIKOTO_CLI_BRANCH=main
• ANI_CLI_WEB_BRANCH=main

Docker

Build:

docker build -t ani-cli-web .

Build a specific ani-cli-web branch:

docker build --build-arg ANI_CLI_WEB_BRANCH=master -t ani-cli-web .

Run:

docker run --rm \
  -p 8421:8421 \
  -e USER_UID="$(id -u)" \
  -e USER_GID="$(id -g)" \
  -v "$(pwd)/downloads:/downloads" \
  -v "$(pwd)/.ani-cli-web:/app/.ani-cli-web" \
  ani-cli-web

Compose:

USER_UID="$(id -u)" USER_GID="$(id -g)" docker compose up --build -d

Compose can also target a specific ani-cli-web branch:

ANI_CLI_WEB_BRANCH=master USER_UID="$(id -u)" USER_GID="$(id -g)" docker compose up --build -d

Docker notes:

• The container serves on 0.0.0.0:8421
• Downloads are written under /downloads
• App state is stored under /app/.ani-cli-web
• USER_UID and USER_GID help keep mounted files owned by your host user
• UPDATE_ON_START=true runs ani-cli --update before startup
• The image installs both ani-cli and anikoto-cli system-wide under /usr/local/bin

Key behavior

Watchlist

• Adding a show tracks it without downloading immediately
• Later manual refreshes or scheduled refreshes can queue missing episodes
• Download all queues every currently available episode for the chosen mode
• Successful downloads sync back into the watchlist
• TV entries move to Finished when the selected downloaded mode reaches the expected episode count
• Movie entries can be treated as complete after download and routed to movie storage

Auto-download

• Runs only for entries in Watching
• Uses the per-show language, quality, Source name search override, season, library name, and optional episode offset settings
• Can queue backlog episodes that were already available before the show was first tracked

Backup downloads

• Configure the global backup toggle from /config
• When enabled, any failed ani-cli queue job automatically retries with anikoto-cli
• anikoto-cli ignores the saved quality setting, so backup attempts use the source's default stream quality

Jellyfin handoff

• Optional and configured from /config
• TV libraries move only after the show is finished and download-complete
• Movie libraries move after download completion
• Manual Run now scans the watchlist in a background job and shows live progress for processed entries, moved files, and the current destination path
• Recent Jellyfin handoff jobs survive page reloads and show their latest status after app restarts

Homepage widget API

For Homepage's Custom API widget, use:

http://127.0.0.1:8421/api/watchlist/homepage

Example response:

{
  "watchlist": 12,
  "planned": 4,
  "finished": 31,
  "dropped": 2,
  "total": 49
}

This endpoint is intentionally small so Homepage can map the returned values directly into its widget fields.

Runtime info

The Config page runtime panel shows:

• ani-cli-web version loaded from VERSION
• Installed ani-cli version
• A Changelog button that opens a scrollable viewer backed by CHANGELOG.md

Remote access

By default the app only serves loopback clients.

To allow LAN or remote access:

ANI_CLI_WEB_ALLOW_REMOTE=1
ANI_CLI_WEB_AUTH_USERNAME=admin
ANI_CLI_WEB_AUTH_PASSWORD=choose-a-long-random-password

Optional remote path restriction:

ANI_CLI_WEB_REMOTE_PATH_ROOTS=/downloads:/srv/jellyfin-tv:/srv/jellyfin-movies

State and storage

Project state is stored in:

ani-cli-web/.ani-cli-web/

Main contents:

• config.json
• remote-sessions.json
• state.sqlite3
• thumbnails/

Downloaded files are organized like this:

ANI_CLI_DOWNLOAD_DIR/tv/Show Name/Season 01/Show Name - S01E01.mp4
ANI_CLI_DOWNLOAD_DIR/movie/Movie Name/Movie Name.mp4

Configuration

Most users only need these environment variables:

• ANI_CLI_BIN
• ANIKOTO_CLI_BIN
• ANI_CLI_WEB_HOST
• ANI_CLI_WEB_PORT
• ANI_CLI_WEB_ALLOW_REMOTE
• ANI_CLI_WEB_AUTH_USERNAME
• ANI_CLI_WEB_AUTH_PASSWORD
• ANI_CLI_WEB_REMOTE_PATH_ROOTS
• ANI_CLI_WEB_DEBUG
• ANI_CLI_WEB_STATE_ROOT

Container-specific variables:

• UPDATE_ON_START
• USER_UID
• USER_GID

Everything else can usually be configured from /config.

Testing

Run the regression suite with:

python3 -m unittest test_app.py