What is this?
catbus is a command-line tool that lets you talk to 10 major Chinese and international platforms (Xiaohongshu, Douyin, TikTok, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Weibo, Xianyu, Taobao, JD, X) through one consistent set of commands and JSON output, instead of learning each platform's own API.
catbus is a command-line tool that lets you talk to 10 major Chinese and international platforms (Xiaohongshu, Douyin, TikTok, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Weibo, Xianyu, Taobao, JD, X) through one consistent set of commands and JSON output, instead of learning each platform's own API.Is catbus a library I import, or a standalone CLI?It is a standalone CLI you run from the terminal; it also ships Agent Skills and an llms.txt so AI coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex can call it directly rather than you embedding it as a library.
It is a standalone CLI you run from the terminal; it also ships Agent Skills and an llms.txt so AI coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex can call it directly rather than you embedding it as a library.How do I get it running?The README points to a '30-second quick start' that installs via Node, with Docker and from-source as alternative paths covered in the docs.
The README points to a '30-second quick start' that installs via Node, with Docker and from-source as alternative paths covered in the docs.Do I need Python or any compiler toolchain first?No - Node.js is the only requirement. All native dependencies ship as precompiled binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux on both x64 and arm64 (including musl), tested across 8 target systems in CI.
No - Node.js is the only requirement. All native dependencies ship as precompiled binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux on both x64 and arm64 (including musl), tested across 8 target systems in CI.What happens if a platform's anti-bot system catches me?Automated use can trigger a platform's risk control, which may show up as captchas, rate limiting, or account bans; catbus surfaces this explicitly as a RISKCONTROL error with a next-step hint instead of silently retrying.
Automated use can trigger a platform's risk control, which may show up as captchas, rate limiting, or account bans; catbus surfaces this explicitly as a RISKCONTROL error with a next-step hint instead of silently retrying.How does catbus make sure its requests actually match what the real app sends?Every request's URL, header order, cookies, body, and signature are byte-for-byte diffed against the upstream clients using fixed random seeds and clocks, backed by 560+ diff datasets and 940+ offline tests.
Every request's URL, header order, cookies, body, and signature are byte-for-byte diffed against the upstream clients using fixed random seeds and clocks, backed by 560+ diff datasets and 940+ offline tests.How does it get past slider and click captchas?It runs the platform's own signing JavaScript in a sandbox and presents a Chrome-matching TLS/HTTP2 fingerprint, then solves slider and click-style captchas locally using ONNX and OpenCV.
It runs the platform's own signing JavaScript in a sandbox and presents a Chrome-matching TLS/HTTP2 fingerprint, then solves slider and click-style captchas locally using ONNX and OpenCV.What makes the output easy for an AI agent to chain together?Every command returns the same {ok, data, page, error} envelope, failed calls include an error.hint with the next command to run, and every result object carries an id and url so it can feed straight into the next call.
Every command returns the same {ok, data, page, error} envelope, failed calls include an error.hint with the next command to run, and every result object carries an id and url so it can feed straight into the next call.Can catbus post content or send messages, not just scrape?Yes - it supports publishing, direct messages, and reading live danmaku, but write actions require an explicit -y flag and published content defaults to visible-only-to-you for safety.
Yes - it supports publishing, direct messages, and reading live danmaku, but write actions require an explicit -y flag and published content defaults to visible-only-to-you for safety.What are similar projects?MediaCrawler, social-auto-upload, Agent-Reach, chubbyskills, creatorhub, AiToEarn, RSSHub, BettaFish
MediaCrawler, social-auto-upload, Agent-Reach, chubbyskills, creatorhub, AiToEarn, RSSHub, BettaFish