User supplied Scripts

If you want to create custom behaviour around spotifyd, one option is to look into the D-Bus functionality. But on headless systems or smaller projects, we also offer a hook API. On certain events, a hook can be executed with event details given as environment variables.

To point spotifyd to such a script, use the --onevent /path/to/script cli arg / on_song_change_hook = "/path/to/script" configuration value.

In order to learn about the available events and the available details, you can either create simple scripts which log the given environment variables or look at the output of spotifyd, which logs whenever the script is executed.

The following scripts are intended to serve as inspiration for your own scripts. If you have written own scripts which you think might be useful to others, please create a PR adding them here!

Dunst Notifications (Using Spotify API)

This script will show a dunst notification when you play/change/stop Spotify (and when the music change). It is using spotify APIs to get music details.

Dependencies

curl (Request to APIs)
xargs (Argument passing)
cut
jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq) (for JSON parsing)

How to use

Create a file containing the script below:

bash

user_id=YOUR_USER_ID # generated on https://developer.spotify.com/dashboard/applications
secret_id=YOUR_SECRET_ID

myToken=$(curl -s -X 'POST' -u $user_id:$secret_id -d grant_type=client_credentials https://accounts.spotify.com/api/token | jq '.access_token' | cut -d\" -f2)
RESULT=$?

if [ "$PLAYER_EVENT" = "start" ];
then
    if [ $RESULT -eq 0 ]; then
        curl -s -X 'GET' https://api.spotify.com/v1/tracks/$TRACK_ID -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H "Authorization:\"Bearer $myToken\"" | jq '.name, .artists[].name, .album.name, .album.release_date, .track_number, .album.total_tracks' | xargs printf "\"Playing '%s' from '%s' (album: '%s' in %s (%s/%s))\"" | xargs notify-send --urgency=low --expire-time=3000 --icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/32x32/actions/player_play.png --app-name=spotifyd spotifyd
    else
        echo "Cannot get token."
    fi
elif [ "$PLAYER_EVENT" = "change" ];
then
    if [ $RESULT -eq 0 ]; then
        curl -s -X 'GET' https://api.spotify.com/v1/tracks/$TRACK_ID -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H "Authorization:\"Bearer $myToken\"" | jq '.name, .artists[].name, .album.name, .album.release_date, .track_number, .album.total_tracks' | xargs printf "\"Music changed to '%s' from '%s' (album: '%s' in %s (%s/%s))\"" | xargs notify-send --urgency=low --expire-time=3000 --icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/32x32/actions/player_fwd.png --app-name=spotifyd spotifyd
    else
        echo "Cannot get token."
    fi
elif [ "$PLAYER_EVENT" = "stop" ];
then
    if [ $RESULT -eq 0 ]; then
        curl -s -X 'GET' https://api.spotify.com/v1/tracks/$TRACK_ID -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H "Authorization:\"Bearer $myToken\"" | jq '.name, .artists[].name, .album.name, .album.release_date, .track_number, .album.total_tracks' | xargs printf "Stoping music (Last song: '%s' from '%s' (album: '%s' in %s (%s/%s)))\"" | xargs notify-send --urgency=low --expire-time=3000 --icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/32x32/actions/player_stop.png --app-name=spotifyd spotifyd
    else
        echo "Cannot get token."
    fi
else
    echo "Unknown event."
fi

Make this script executable (chmod +x notification_script.sh)
Add the line onevent = "bash /home/YOU_USER/bin/spotifyNotifications.sh" to your spotifyd.conf