anishio/ani-cli.md

ani-cli Research

Source: https://github.com/pystardust/ani-cli Version at time of research: 4.11.0 Language: POSIX Shell (~500 lines) License: GPL-3.0

Overview

ani-cli is a CLI tool to browse and watch anime. It scrapes allmanga.to via a GraphQL API, decodes obfuscated video source URLs, and launches a media player (mpv, vlc, iina, etc.).

The entire codebase is a single file: ani-cli (a POSIX shell script).

Architecture / Code Sections

The script is organized into these logical blocks:

1. UI Functions

Function	Purpose
external_menu()	Wraps rofi/dmenu for external menu support
launcher()	Dispatches to fzf (default), rofi, or dmenu
nth()	Core selection function -- pipes items through launcher, supports multi-select

2. Scraping / API

All API calls go to https://api.allanime.day/api as GraphQL POST requests with Content-Type: application/json. The referer is set to https://allmanga.to.

GraphQL Queries

Search anime:

query(
  $search: SearchInput
  $limit: Int
  $page: Int
  $translationType: VaildTranslationTypeEnumType
  $countryOrigin: VaildCountryOriginEnumType
) {
  shows(
    search: $search
    limit: $limit
    page: $page
    translationType: $translationType
    countryOrigin: $countryOrigin
  ) {
    edges {
      _id
      name
      availableEpisodes
      __typename
    }
  }
}

Variables:

{
  "search": { "allowAdult": false, "allowUnknown": false, "query": "<search term>" },
  "limit": 40,
  "page": 1,
  "translationType": "sub",
  "countryOrigin": "ALL"
}

Get episodes list:

query ($showId: String!) {
  show(_id: $showId) {
    _id
    availableEpisodesDetail
  }
}

Get episode embed URLs:

query (
  $showId: String!
  $translationType: VaildTranslationTypeEnumType!
  $episodeString: String!
) {
  episode(
    showId: $showId
    translationType: $translationType
    episodeString: $episodeString
  ) {
    episodeString
    sourceUrls
  }
}

3. Provider URL Decoding (Hex Cipher)

The API returns obfuscated source URLs. The provider_init() function decodes them using a hex-pair substitution cipher. Each two-character hex code maps to an ASCII character:

79 -> A, 7a -> B, 7b -> C, ... (uppercase letters)
59 -> a, 5a -> b, 5b -> c, ... (lowercase letters)
08 -> 0, 09 -> 1, 0a -> 2, ... (digits)
15 -> -, 16 -> ., 17 -> /, 02 -> :, etc. (symbols)

Full mapping (hex -> char):

Hex	Char	Hex	Char	Hex	Char	Hex	Char
79	A	59	a	08	0	15	-
7a	B	5a	b	09	1	16	.
7b	C	5b	c	0a	2	67	_
7c	D	5c	d	0b	3	46	~
7d	E	5d	e	0c	4	02	:
7e	F	5e	f	0d	5	17	/
7f	G	5f	g	0e	6	07	?
70	H	50	h	0f	7	1b	#
71	I	51	i	00	8	63	[
72	J	52	j	01	9	65	]
73	K	53	k			78	@
74	L	54	l			19	!
75	M	55	m			1c	$
76	N	56	n			1e	&
77	O	57	o			10	(
68	P	48	p			11	)
69	Q	49	q			12	*
6a	R	4a	r			13	+
6b	S	4b	s			14	,
6c	T	4c	t			03	;
6d	U	4d	u			05	=
6e	V	4e	v			1d	%
6f	W	4f	w
60	X	40	x
61	Y	41	y
62	Z	42	z

After decoding, /clock is replaced with /clock.json.

4. Video Providers

Four providers are tried in parallel:

#	Name	Regex Match	Format
1	wixmp (Default)	/Default :/p	m3u8 -> mp4 (multi-quality)
2	youtube	/Yt-mp4 :/p	mp4 (single)
3	sharepoint	/S-mp4 :/p	mp4 (single)
4	hianime	/Luf-Mp4 :/p	m3u8 (multi-quality)

5. Link Extraction (get_links)

After fetching a provider URL, the response is parsed for video links. Three cases:

1. wixmp (repackager.wixmp.com) -- Extracts mp4 URLs with multiple quality options from a comma-separated URL pattern
2. m3u8 (master.m3u8) -- Parses the m3u8 playlist for stream variants at different resolutions. Also extracts subtitle URLs and referrer headers
3. Direct links -- Used as-is
4. fast4speed.rsvp -- YouTube-like links, passed to yt-dlp

6. Quality Selection (select_quality)

• best -- first (highest resolution) link
• worst -- last numeric resolution link
• Specific (e.g., 1080) -- grep for matching resolution
• Falls back to best if specified quality not found
• Sets --referrer and --sub-file flags for m3u8 streams

7. Playback (play_episode)

Launches the selected player with the video URL. Supported players:

Player	Platform	How
mpv	Linux/Windows	mpv / mpv.exe (detached or attached)
flatpak mpv	Linux	flatpak run io.mpv.Mpv
vlc	Linux/Windows	vlc / vlc.exe
iina	macOS	IINA app CLI
android_mpv	Android	am start intent
android_vlc	Android	am start intent
syncplay	All	Syncplay wrapper
download	All	aria2c (mp4) or yt-dlp/ffmpeg (m3u8)
catt	All	Chromecast via catt
iSH	iOS	VLC URL scheme

8. History

• Stored in ~/.local/state/ani-cli/ani-hsts (or $ANI_CLI_HIST_DIR)
• Format: <episode_no>\t<show_id>\t<title>
• Updated after each episode play
• Used by --continue to resume watching

9. Main Flow

1. Parse CLI arguments
2. Check dependencies
3. Search:
   a. If --continue: read history, show unwatched, pick one
   b. Otherwise: prompt for search query, call search_anime(), pick result
4. Get episode list for selected anime
5. Pick episode (or use --episode flag)
6. play():
   a. get_episode_url() -> fetch embed URLs -> decode providers -> fetch links -> select quality
   b. play_episode() -> launch player
7. Loop: next / replay / previous / select / change_quality / quit

Dependencies

• curl -- HTTP requests
• sed, grep -- text processing / parsing
• fzf -- interactive selection (or rofi/dmenu)
• mpv / vlc / iina -- video playback
• aria2c -- download manager (for mp4 downloads)
• yt-dlp -- m3u8 downloads
• ffmpeg -- m3u8 downloads (fallback)
• ani-skip -- optional, skip anime intros (uses aniskip API + mpv lua scripts)
• patch -- self-updating

Key Constants

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/121.0
Referer:    https://allmanga.to
API Base:   https://api.allanime.day
Link Base:  allanime.day