Babeliocli Setup

babeliocli — Setup, Authentication, Session Management

babeliocli is a read-only CLI for babelio.com. It does not use an official API: instead, it logs into the regular web form (or reuses cookies from the user's browser) and parses HTML pages.

Install

One-liner (macOS or Linux, amd64 or arm64):

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/babeliocli/main/install.sh | sh

Or with Go:

go install github.com/yoanbernabeu/babeliocli@latest

Or grab a binary from the GitHub releases.

Authentication path 1 — username & password

babeliocli login --username 'pseudo_or_email'
# Password is prompted (hidden) unless --password-stdin or BABELIO_PASSWORD is set.

For scripts, prefer stdin so the password never appears on a process list:

printf '%s' "$BABELIO_PASSWORD" | babeliocli login --username "$BABELIO_USERNAME" --password-stdin

Environment variables: BABELIO_USERNAME, BABELIO_PASSWORD.

Authentication path 2 — SSO (Google / Facebook)

Babelio supports Google and Facebook login. babeliocli does not implement the full OAuth flow; instead, the user imports the cookies they already have in their browser.

1. User signs into babelio.com as usual.
2. User copies the following cookies from DevTools → Application → Cookies → https://www.babelio.com:
   • PHPSESSID
   • bbac
   • id_user
   • bbacml (optional)
3. Run:

babeliocli session import \
  --phpsessid 'XXX' \
  --bbac 'YYY' \
  --id-user 'NNN' \
  --username 'pseudo'

Or provide a JSON export from an extension like "EditThisCookie":

babeliocli session import --cookie-file cookies.json --username 'pseudo'

The session is verified by hitting /mabibliotheque.php and confirming we are not redirected to the login page.

Inspect and clear the session

babeliocli whoami   # shows username, id_user, saved_at
babeliocli logout   # removes ~/.config/babeliocli/session.json

The session file lives at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/babeliocli/session.json (usually ~/.config/babeliocli/session.json on Linux/macOS) with mode 0600. Do not commit it to a repository.

Session expired?

If any read command returns session expired: run babeliocli login or babeliocli session import again, re-authenticate. Babelio's session TTL is finite, so expect periodic re-logins.

Output format

Every command defaults to JSON. Pass -f text for a readable terminal view. Errors go to stderr so that stdout stays valid JSON:

babeliocli whoami 2>/dev/null | jq .username

Troubleshooting