go-playerctl

A Go port of Playerctl for controlling MPRIS-compatible media players over D-Bus.

Status: Go-complete baseline. Core CLI, daemon, and library are implemented in Go.

Installation

You can download pre-compiled binaries for your platform from the GitHub Releases page.

Alternatively, you can install from source using go install:

go install github.com/arran4/go-playerctl/cmd/goplayerctl@latest

Quick start

go test ./...
goplayerctl --version
goplayerctl daemon --version

CLI usage (goplayerctl)

goplayerctl [flags] <command>

Supported flags

• -p, --player comma-separated instance list (for example vlc,spotify)
• -i, --ignore-player comma-separated instance ignore list
• -a, --all-players run query/action for all discovered players
• -l, --list-all print discovered player instances
• -f, --format output format using Go template syntax
• -F, --follow poll and print changes for query commands
• --follow-interval polling period for --follow
• --tui-scheme TUI control scheme (arrow, vim, winamp, emacs)
• --version print CLI version string

Supported commands

• play
• pause
• play-pause / playpause
• next
• previous
• status
• metadata
• format [string]
• album
• artist
• title
• track
• loop [None|Track|Playlist]
• shuffle [On|Off|Toggle]
• volume [level]
• position [offset]
• rate [level]
• open <uri>
• playlist
• tracklist

Examples

# list players
goplayerctl --list-all

# query status for one player
goplayerctl --player vlc status

# query metadata for all players with formatted output
goplayerctl --all-players --format '{{ .player }}: {{ default .title "(none)" }}' metadata

# query metadata for a player showing artist, album, and title
goplayerctl --player spotify --format '{{ default .artist "Unknown Artist" }} - {{ default .album "Unknown Album" }} - {{ default .title "Unknown Title" }}' metadata

# follow status changes
goplayerctl --player spotify --follow status

# print active playlist details via template
goplayerctl --format 'Active Playlist: {{ .activePlaylistName }} ({{ .playlistCount }} total)' metadata

# print out all tracks in the tracklist
goplayerctl --format '{{ range .tracklist }}{{ .title }} by {{ .artist }}{{ "\n" }}{{ end }}' metadata

# print out all available playlists
goplayerctl --format '{{ range .playlists }}Playlist: {{ .name }}{{ "\n" }}{{ end }}' metadata

TUI usage (goplayerctl tui)

go run ./cmd/goplayerctl tui [flags]

Daemon usage (goplayerctl daemon)

goplayerctl daemon [flags]

Supported flags

• --once refresh and print discovered players once, then exit
• --refresh-interval refresh interval for daemon loop
• --version print daemon version string

D-Bus service surface (current)

When not in --once mode, daemon attempts to export:

• Bus name: org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.playerctld
• Object path: /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2
• Interface: com.github.altdesktop.playerctld

Methods/properties currently exposed by the Go port:

• methods: Shift, Unshift
• signals emitted: ActivePlayerChangeBegin, ActivePlayerChangeEnd
• properties/accessors: PlayerNames, ActivePlayer

Signals / Event Subscriptions

If you want to observe asynchronous D-Bus events for a specific player connection (like TrackAdded or Seeked or NameOwnerChanged), you can consume signals using the exported .Events() channel on the Player struct:

events := p.Events()
for sig := range events {
    fmt.Printf("Received signal: %s from %s\n", sig.Name, sig.Sender)
}

Library usage (pkg/playerctl)

The package provides:

• enums and parsers (PlaybackStatus, LoopStatus, Source)
• typed errors (ErrPlayerNotFound, InvalidCommandError, FormatError)
• Player with MPRIS property getters/commands/metadata helpers
• PlayerManager for discovery/filtering/ordering helpers
• Formatter backed by Go text/template

Minimal example

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/arran4/go-playerctl/pkg/playerctl"
)

func main() {
    p, err := playerctl.NewPlayer("vlc", playerctl.SourceDBusSession)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    defer p.Close()

    status, err := p.PlaybackStatus()
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(status)
}

Formatting model

Formatter uses Go text/template and supports helper functions:

• lc, uc
• default
• duration
• markup_escape
• emoji
• trunc
• add, sub
• has_playlist
• has_tracklist

Example:

goplayerctl --player spotify --format '{{ emoji .status }} {{ default .title "(none)" }}' status

# Only show playlist if it exists
goplayerctl --format '{{ if has_playlist .playlistCount }}Active: {{ .activePlaylistName }}{{ else }}No playlist{{ end }}' metadata

# Print current playback rate
goplayerctl --format 'Rate: {{ .rate }}x' metadata

# Conditionally list tracks only if a tracklist is populated
goplayerctl --format '{{ if has_tracklist .trackCount }}Tracks:\n{{ range .tracklist }}{{ .title }}\n{{ end }}{{ end }}' metadata

Documentation and references

• API Reference: pkg.go.dev/github.com/arran4/go-playerctl
• Man page source: doc/playerctl-go.1.md

Development

go test ./...
go test -race ./...