# Show HN: Silver Music Notifier – get notified about your artists' new releases

> Source: <https://github.com/czarandy/silver-music-notifier>
> Published: 2026-06-16 17:09:17+00:00

Track a list of artists and get notified of their new music releases from
[MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org). Use it from the terminal, or launch a
local web UI (built with [silver-ui](https://silver-ui.com)).

```
npm install -g silver-music-notifier
```

Requires Node 22+.

```
silver-music-notifier web            # starts on http://localhost:3001 and opens a browser
silver-music-notifier web --port 8080 --no-open
```

The UI has three views:

**Releases**— a feed of every known release-group, newest first, with a** Refresh**button and a "New" badge on releases discovered in the last refresh.** Artists**— search MusicBrainz and add/remove the artists you follow.** Settings**— set the MusicBrainz contact (required), choose notification methods, and configure SMTP for email.

```
silver-music-notifier add "Radiohead"          # search MusicBrainz, pick a match
silver-music-notifier add "Boards of Canada" -y  # add the top match, no prompt
silver-music-notifier add "X" --mbid <mbid>    # add an exact MBID
silver-music-notifier list                     # list tracked artists
silver-music-notifier remove "Radiohead"       # stop tracking (by name or MBID)
silver-music-notifier refresh                  # fetch releases + notify on new ones
silver-music-notifier refresh --no-notify      # fetch without sending email
silver-music-notifier releases --new --limit 20
silver-music-notifier dismiss <release-mbid>   # hide a release's New badge
silver-music-notifier config get               # show settings
silver-music-notifier config set notify.email true
silver-music-notifier clear-data               # delete artists/releases, keep settings
```

MusicBrainz requires every API client to identify a contact (an email or URL) in
its User-Agent, and throttles or blocks requests without one. The first time you
run most CLI commands, the CLI **prompts you for a contact** and saves it.
Non-network setup commands such as `config set`

, `clear-data`

, and `dismiss`

can run before the contact is configured. You can also set it ahead of time:

```
silver-music-notifier config set musicbrainz.contact you@example.com
```

or in the web UI's **Settings** view after the app has launched. In a
non-interactive context (no TTY), commands that require the contact error with
this guidance instead of prompting.

When `refresh`

finds releases it has never seen before, it can notify you two ways:

**In-page badges**— "New" badges in the web UI (always available).** Email**— one HTML email per new release, sent once SMTP is configured and the email toggle is on. Configure it in the** Settings**view or via`config set smtp.host`

,`smtp.port`

,`smtp.secure`

,`smtp.user`

,`smtp.pass`

,`smtp.from`

, and`smtp.to`

.

Adding a new artist refreshes that artist immediately, but treats the existing catalog as your starting baseline: it does not send email for those releases or mark them with "New" badges.

`refresh`

is manual — run it from the CLI, the web button, or your own scheduler
(cron, systemd timer, etc.).

To check for new releases on a schedule, first make sure the CLI has the required MusicBrainz contact and any notification settings configured:

```
silver-music-notifier config set musicbrainz.contact you@example.com
silver-music-notifier config set notify.email true   # optional, if SMTP is configured
```

Then add a cron entry. This example refreshes every day at 9:00 AM:

```
0 9 * * * /usr/bin/env silver-music-notifier refresh >> "$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier/cron.log" 2>&1
```

If cron cannot find the command, use the full path from
`command -v silver-music-notifier`

. To use a custom database location, set
`SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR`

in the cron line:

```
0 9 * * *
SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR="$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier" /usr/bin/env silver-music-notifier refresh >> "$HOME/.local/share/silver-music-notifier/cron.log" 2>&1
```

State lives in a single SQLite file (`data.db`

) in your per-user data directory:

**Linux:**`$XDG_DATA_HOME/silver-music-notifier`

(usually`~/.local/share/silver-music-notifier`

)**macOS:**`~/Library/Application Support/silver-music-notifier`

**Windows:**`%LOCALAPPDATA%\silver-music-notifier\Data`

Override the location with the `SILVER_MUSIC_NOTIFIER_DATA_DIR`

environment
variable.

Note:SMTP credentials (including the password) are stored in plaintext in that local SQLite file. This is a single-user local tool; treat the data directory accordingly.

Notification methods (in-page / email) and the MusicBrainz contact are
configured in the web UI's **Settings** view or via `silver-music-notifier config set …`

— not through environment variables.