artist-tracker

README

ArtistTrackarr

A self-hosted household dashboard that watches Spotify for new albums, EPs, and singles, using MusicBrainz for stable artist identity with Apple/iTunes fallback observations, and sends announcement and release-day notifications through Shoutrrr.

Example dashboard

The following screenshot shows how ArtistTrackarr can look in a production deployment:

Quick start

1. Copy .env.example to .env and set SETUP_TOKEN, APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY, and SESSION_SECRET. Each secret should be a random value of at least 32 characters.

2. Set MUSICBRAINZ_CONTACT to a real email address or project URL.

3. Start the application:

   docker compose pull
   docker compose up -d
   

4. Open http://localhost:8080/setup, enter SETUP_TOKEN, and create the first administrator.

Application data is stored in the legacy-named artist-tracker-data Docker volume so existing installations can upgrade without moving their data. The app supports a single running replica. Docker Compose names that container artist-trackarr for predictable logs and administration commands.

Release-group artwork follows a validated cascade: Spotify artwork first, then direct Apple/iTunes artwork, then Cover Art Archive artwork for real MusicBrainz IDs, and finally a local placeholder. Apple artwork is loaded directly by the browser and is never stored, cached, or proxied by the app; the dashboard labels it with Apple attribution and an Apple Music link. A bounded background backfill gradually fills artwork on existing iTunes releases without creating releases or notifications.

Use the moon/sun button in the header to switch between light and dark mode; your choice is remembered in the browser. The running application version and project repository are available in the footer.

Container images

GitHub Actions builds and publishes the Docker image to ghcr.io/crypt0rr/artist-trackarr for linux/amd64 and linux/arm64.

• latest and main follow the current main branch.
• sha-<commit> identifies an exact source revision.
• Pushing a tag such as v0.12.1 publishes 0.12.1, 0.12, and latest.

Pin a deployment to a release by setting the Compose image before starting:

ARTIST_TRACKARR_IMAGE=ghcr.io/crypt0rr/artist-trackarr:0.12.1 docker compose up -d

Configuration

Variable	Required	Default	Description
PUBLIC_URL	yes	http://localhost:8080	External base URL; use HTTPS behind a reverse proxy.
SETUP_TOKEN	first run	—	Protects initial administrator creation.
APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY	yes	—	Encrypts notification credentials at rest.
SESSION_SECRET	yes	—	Adds server-side protection to session cookies.
MUSICBRAINZ_CONTACT	yes	—	Contact included in the required MusicBrainz User-Agent.
POLL_INTERVAL	no	6h	Catalog polling interval; values below one hour are rejected.
SPOTIFY_POLL_INTERVAL	no	24h	Independent Spotify observation interval; values below one hour are rejected.
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID	no	—	Enables Spotify-first artist discovery.
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET	no	—	Spotify application secret.
SPOTIFY_MARKET	no	US	Two-letter market used when retrieving Spotify releases.
DATABASE_PATH	no	/data/artist-tracker.db	SQLite database location.
LISTEN_ADDR	no	:8080	HTTP listen address.
LOG_LEVEL	no	info	JSON log threshold: debug, info, warn, or error.
TZ	no	UTC	Container/system timezone for runtime logs and local process time, e.g. Europe/Amsterdam.

Every secret also supports Docker's *_FILE convention, for example APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY_FILE=/run/secrets/encryption_key.

Spotify, Apple/iTunes, and MusicBrainz discovery and release observation

Create an application in the Spotify developer dashboard, then set SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID and SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET. When configured, Spotify supplies the preferred artist search, images, links, and release observation feed. When Spotify is unavailable or returns no results, the application falls back to the public Apple iTunes Search API and then MusicBrainz. MusicBrainz remains the stable artist identity source. Spotify- and iTunes-only releases are stored under their stable provider identity and can generate notifications immediately; they are promoted to a MusicBrainz release group later when a conservative title, type, and date match is found.

Set SPOTIFY_MARKET to the country whose catalogue should be checked, for example NL. Existing followed artists are silently baselined the first time Spotify release polling runs after an upgrade, preventing back-catalogue notification floods. New releases observed after that baseline can notify independently of MusicBrainz. Albums, EPs, and singles are all eligible release types; multi-track Spotify releases with at least four tracks are treated as EPs.

To keep Spotify Development Mode usage low, release observation normally reads the newest Spotify artist-albums page and only walks older pages when the stored Spotify release history has not yet been reached. Known release IDs, dates, and provider observations are retained locally, and successful release responses are cached for 24 hours. Artist searches are cached briefly (with identical in-flight searches coalesced), and artist metadata is cached for 24 hours; this also means selecting an artist directly from a recent search does not trigger a second lookup request. Batch follow actions use Spotify's multiple-artist endpoint when available. Artists are assigned stable polling offsets so a large watch list is spread across the day instead of queried in one burst. Apple/iTunes release observations are best-effort and are matched by canonical artist name. Collections are classified as Album, EP, or Single using track-count/title heuristics. Apple artwork URLs are accepted only from Apple hosts, loaded directly with attribution, and never downloaded or retained as image bytes. Existing artwork gaps are backfilled one artist at a time using the same conservative limiter. MusicBrainz release polling remains the final fallback and does not override successful Spotify or iTunes observations.

iTunes requests are serialized to approximately one request every three seconds and successful responses are cached. The storefront follows SPOTIFY_MARKET (default US), and no Apple credentials are required. The iTunes Search API recommends keeping usage around 20 requests per minute, so iTunes remains a conservative fallback rather than a high-volume source.

Successful Spotify checks also adapt per artist. A catalog change returns the artist to the configured SPOTIFY_POLL_INTERVAL; unchanged artists back off progressively up to seven days, while artists with upcoming releases stay on the baseline interval. The backoff state is stored in SQLite and survives restarts. Spotify rate-limit cooldowns are stored at provider level as well, so a quota response suppresses background and search requests until the safe retry time even if the container is restarted.

Selections that cannot be identified while MusicBrainz is unavailable remain pending and retry automatically.

Spotify Development Mode currently requires the application owner to have an active Premium subscription and limits new applications to five authorized users. No Spotify user login is required for this application's client-credentials search and release-observation flow.

Artist management

The Add artists page combines individual search, multi-select following, watchlist export, and ArtistTrackarr CSV import. An export can be uploaded unchanged for a round trip: the six exported columns are required (in any order), while unknown future columns are ignored. Imports are limited to 1 MiB and 500 data rows, validate canonical MusicBrainz and optional Spotify identities locally, and process rows independently. Added rows are followed and scheduled for the normal baseline sync; invalid rows remain visible in the owner-only import results page and do not prevent valid rows from being applied. Provider calls are never made during the upload request.

Notification destinations

Users can add guided Email, Discord, Telegram, ntfy, Gotify, and generic webhook destinations. Any service supported by Shoutrrr can be added with its raw service URL. Credentials are encrypted in SQLite and redacted from the UI and logs. Use the Send test action after adding a destination.

Users can choose whether albums, EPs, singles, announcements, and release-day reminders should be delivered. Followed artists show their last and next synchronization times, and Sync now queues a rate-limited refresh. Release details expose the stored provider observations and source history.

Expired sessions and authentication tokens are removed during periodic state maintenance. Login-attempt records older than 24 hours and completed or failed manual sync requests older than 30 days are removed. Import jobs older than 30 days (including their rows) are removed; notification and delivery history is retained, application logs keep their existing seven-day window, and recent queued work is not deleted.

Household administration

Administrators can review every household account, its role, reminder settings, follow count, and notification-destination count. They can permanently delete another user and all of that user's private data. Administrators cannot delete their own account or leave the household without an administrator.

Reverse proxy and backups

Terminate TLS at Caddy, Traefik, nginx, or another reverse proxy and set PUBLIC_URL to its HTTPS address. The app honors X-Forwarded-For only when TRUST_PROXY=true.

For a consistent backup, stop the container and archive the Docker volume:

docker compose stop app
docker run --rm -v artist-tracker-data:/data -v "$PWD":/backup alpine \
  tar czf /backup/artist-tracker-backup.tgz -C /data .
docker compose start app

Restore into an empty volume while the app is stopped. Embedded migrations run automatically during upgrades.

Development

The test suite runs in the pinned Go toolchain from the build image:

docker build --target test .

To build and run the current checkout instead of the published image:

docker build -t artist-trackarr:local .
ARTIST_TRACKARR_IMAGE=artist-trackarr:local docker compose up -d

No Node.js toolchain or external asset CDN is required.

License

• Licensed under the MIT License.