bilicli

A read-only Bilibili CLI tool for terminal and agent use.

Install

pip install -e .

Requires: Python 3.9+, ffmpeg (for video/audio download only)

Optional: mlx-whisper (for local speech-to-text on macOS Apple Silicon)

Usage

Authentication

bilicli login          # QR code login (scan with Bilibili app)
bilicli whoami         # Show current user
bilicli logout         # Clear credentials

Browse

bilicli feed                           # Recommended videos (fresh each run)
bilicli search "keyword"               # Search videos
bilicli search-user "username"         # Search users (UP主)
bilicli user 12345678                  # User profile by UID
bilicli user-videos 12345678           # User's uploaded videos

Video Details

bilicli video BV1xx411c7mD             # Video info (URL, cover, page count if multi-part)
bilicli pages BV1xx411c7mD             # List parts (分P) with CID and duration
bilicli subtitle BV1xx411c7mD          # Subtitles (default: Chinese)
bilicli subtitle-langs BV1xx411c7mD    # List available subtitle languages
bilicli danmaku BV1xx411c7mD           # Bullet comments
bilicli comments BV1xx411c7mD          # Top-level comments (with picture URLs)
bilicli replies BV1xx411c7mD 12345     # Replies under a comment (by rpid)

Download

bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD              # Download as MP4 (all parts if multi-part)
bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD -q 4k        # Download at 4K quality
bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD --page 3     # Download specific part only
bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD --quiet      # Only print output path (for agent use)
bilicli download-audio BV1xx411c7mD        # Audio only M4A (all parts if multi-part)
bilicli download-audio BV1xx411c7mD --page 1  # Audio of a specific part
bilicli download-cover BV1xx411c7mD        # Download cover image

Quality options: 360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p (default), 1080p+, 4k

Higher qualities require a Bilibili Premium (大会员) account.

Transcribe

bilicli transcribe BV1xx411c7mD            # Transcribe audio with mlx-whisper
bilicli transcribe BV1xx411c7mD --page 2   # Transcribe specific part
bilicli transcribe BV1xx411c7mD --lang en  # Transcribe in English
bilicli transcribe BV1xx411c7mD --json     # JSON output with timestamps

Requires macOS Apple Silicon and pip install mlx-whisper.

Multi-Part Videos (分P)

Many Bilibili videos have multiple parts. download and download-audio automatically download all parts by default. Use --page N to target a specific part:

bilicli pages BV1xx411c7mD                 # List all parts with CID and duration
bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD              # Download all parts as MP4
bilicli download BV1xx411c7mD --page 3     # Download part 3 only
bilicli download-audio BV1xx411c7mD        # Audio of all parts
bilicli subtitle BV1xx411c7mD --page 5     # Subtitles for part 5
bilicli danmaku BV1xx411c7mD --page 2      # Danmaku for part 2
bilicli transcribe BV1xx411c7mD --page 1   # Transcribe part 1

Common Options

Option	Description
--json	Machine-readable JSON output
-n/--limit	Max items to return (default varies)
--offset	Skip first N items
--all	Return all items
--detail	Show expanded info (views, date, etc.)
--page N	Target part N of a multi-part video
-w/--width	Max text width (0=full, applies to comments/video/user)
-o/--output	Write clean output to file (no hints/progress, info commands)
--quiet	Minimal output for agent use (download commands)
-h/--help	Show help for any command

For Agent Use

• Use --json for structured output
• Use -o file.txt to write clean output to a file (no pagination hints or progress messages)
• Combine -o with --json for clean JSON file output: bilicli search "keyword" --json -o results.json
• Use --quiet with download/download-audio/download-cover to get only the file path
• Pagination footer hints guide how to fetch more data
• All listing commands support --offset, -n, --all for controlled data retrieval
• Comment picture URLs are shown inline as [img] https://...

Credentials

Stored at ~/.config/bilicli/cookies.json.

Dependencies

• httpx — HTTP client
• click — CLI framework
• qrcode — Terminal QR code display

Optional:

• mlx-whisper — Local speech-to-text (macOS Apple Silicon only)

License

MIT