🎌 animecli

Watch anime directly from your terminal — no browser, no ads, no distractions.

Built in Go (zero external dependencies), runs on Linux, macOS and Windows.

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         watch anime from your terminal
  powered by AniList + AllAnime  |  streams in MPV

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How it works — the source chain

Free anime sites like AnimePahe, 9Anime, and the old Zoro/HiAnime don't produce content themselves. They are aggregators and scrapers that:

1. Scrape or mirror encode groups (e.g. SubsPlease, Erai-raws, HorribleSubs) who rip from legal sources like Crunchyroll or Funimation.
2. Re-host video files on CDNs (Akamai, Cloudflare, BunnyCDN) and serve HLS (.m3u8) streams or direct MP4 links.
3. Use embed players (like Kwik, StreamSB, Vidstreaming) that obfuscate the actual CDN URLs behind JavaScript.

animecli bypasses all of that:

Layer	What it does
AniList GraphQL API	Official, free API for anime search, metadata, genres, episode counts
AllAnime	The same backend used by the popular ani-cli shell script — exposes a GraphQL endpoint that returns direct CDN stream URLs
MPV	Plays HLS (.m3u8) and MP4 streams with subtitle support, hardware decoding, seeking
yt-dlp / ffmpeg	Used for downloading episodes (optional, falls back to raw HTTP)

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Features

• 🔍 Search anime by name, powered by AniList
• 📂 Browse by genre / season / year (Action, Romance, Fantasy, etc.)
• 📺 Stream in MPV with hardware decoding and subtitle support
• 💾 Download episodes — single or range (e.g. episodes 1–12)
• 🕓 Watch history — auto-saved, resume from where you left off
• ⏭️ Continue watching — one-click next episode
• 🎙️ Sub / Dub toggle per session or as default
• ⚙️ Settings — configure defaults and download folder
• 🪶 Zero dependencies — single binary, pure Go stdlib

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Requirements

Required

• Go 1.20+ — to build (go.dev/dl)
• MPV — to stream/watch

Optional but recommended

• yt-dlp — best download support (HLS, multi-quality)
• ffmpeg — fallback downloader for HLS streams

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Installation

Linux / macOS (automatic)

git clone https://github.com/yourname/animecli
cd animecli
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

The installer will:

• Check for Go and build the binary
• Try to install MPV automatically via your package manager
• Install animecli to /usr/local/bin

Windows (PowerShell)

git clone https://github.com/yourname/animecli
cd animecli
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install.ps1

Then install MPV:

winget install mpv.net

Manual build

git clone https://github.com/yourname/animecli
cd animecli
go build -o animecli .
./animecli

Cross-compile all platforms at once

make all
# Outputs to dist/:
#   animecli-linux-amd64
#   animecli-linux-arm64
#   animecli-macos-amd64
#   animecli-macos-arm64
#   animecli-windows.exe

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Usage

animecli

You'll see the main menu:

  [1] Search anime by name
  [2] Browse by genre / season
  [3] Watch history
  [4] Continue last watched
  [5] Settings
  [0] Quit

Searching

Type any anime name. Results come from AniList and show:

• Title, score, episode count, status, season, genres

Pick a number → enter episode → choose sub/dub → watch or download.

Episode ranges (batch download)

When asked for an episode, enter a range like 1-12 to download 12 episodes in sequence.

Browse by genre

Pick a genre (Action, Romance, etc.), optionally filter by season (SPRING/SUMMER/FALL/WINTER) and year.

Config file

Saved at ~/.animecli/config.json:

{
  "history": [...],
  "default_sub": "sub",
  "download_dir": "/home/user/animecli-downloads"
}

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Installing dependencies

MPV

Platform	Command
Ubuntu/Debian	sudo apt install mpv
Arch Linux	sudo pacman -S mpv
Fedora	sudo dnf install mpv
macOS	brew install mpv
Windows	winget install mpv.net or mpv.io

yt-dlp (optional, for downloads)

pip install yt-dlp
# or
brew install yt-dlp

ffmpeg (optional, fallback downloader)

sudo apt install ffmpeg   # Linux
brew install ffmpeg        # macOS
winget install ffmpeg      # Windows

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Troubleshooting

"No streams found"
The episode may not be on AllAnime yet. Try a slightly different title spelling (Romaji vs English). Some very new episodes take a few hours to appear.

MPV not found on Windows
Install via winget install mpv.net or download from mpv.io. Make sure mpv.exe is in your PATH.

Black screen / audio only
Run mpv --hwdec=no <url> to test. Some GPU drivers cause HW decode issues.

Subtitles not showing
AllAnime includes embedded subtitles in the HLS stream for sub versions. If they don't appear, try: --sub-auto=fuzzy in your MPV config.

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Legal notice

animecli accesses content via the AllAnime API, which is a third-party unofficial service. The streams it provides may include copyrighted content. This tool is for educational and personal use only. Consider supporting anime creators via Crunchyroll, Netflix, or Funimation.

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Acknowledgements

• AniList — free anime database API
• ani-cli — the OG anime CLI, inspiration for the streaming source chain
• AllAnime — streaming backend
• MPV — the best open source media player