Provider Architecture
July 29, 2026 ยท View on GitHub
ani-cli-rs ships two independent catalog clients:
| CLI value | Catalog | Native source path | ID prefix |
|---|---|---|---|
anikoto (default) | anikotoapi.site plus optional AniList enrichment | MegaPlay | anikoto: |
anikoto2 | anikoto.cz website AJAX workflow | MegaPlay/VidTube | anikoto2: |
AllAnime/Mkissa and its rotating cryptographic bootstrap are no longer part of the application.
Module boundaries
| Module | Responsibility |
|---|---|
anikoto | Anikoto API/AniList catalog merge and MegaPlay extraction |
anikoto_cz | Anikoto.cz HTML/AJAX catalog, server tokens, MegaPlay/VidTube extraction |
hls_relay | Tokenized loopback playlist rewriting and PNG-wrapped TS removal |
models | Provider IDs, search results, stream metadata, quality/episode ordering |
player | Safe external-player arguments and relay lifetime |
download | Downloader fallback order, progress, subtitles, relay lifetime |
history | Legacy tab-separated history with self-routing provider IDs |
Routing
Searches use the explicitly selected provider or the anikoto default.
Subsequent commands inspect provider-prefixed IDs:
anikoto:<base64url metadata> -> Anikoto API client
anikoto2:<base64url metadata> -> Anikoto.cz client
This also makes mixed-provider history continuation deterministic. Raw numeric
IDs and raw slugs are intentionally interpreted only by the provider selected
with --provider.
Providers never silently fall back to each other. A failure remains attributed to the catalog the user selected.
Shared stream contract
Both clients return StreamLink values containing:
- validated native media URL;
- quality label and HLS/direct-media classification;
- provider/server label;
- downloadability;
- narrowly scoped referer, origin, and user-agent headers;
- optional validated subtitle tracks.
Quality ordering, player launch, downloads, and history updates operate on this shared type and do not need provider-specific branches.
KotoCDN relay
MegaPlay-associated HLS can contain MPEG-TS fragments hidden behind a PNG
prefix. hls_relay binds only to 127.0.0.1 on an ephemeral port, rewrites
registered playlist resources, validates every upstream URL, and removes a
prefix only when three MPEG-TS sync bytes appear 188 bytes apart.
The player/downloader remains attached for the relay lifetime. Dropping
HlsRelay signals its accept loop to stop.
This is not an internet-facing proxy and cannot fetch arbitrary caller URLs.
Provider references
Testing
Normal tests use parser fixtures and Wiremock. Live smoke tests are opt-in:
ANI_CLI_LIVE_ANIKOTO=1 cargo test live_anikoto_smoke_test_is_opt_in --lib
ANI_CLI_LIVE_ANIKOTO2=1 cargo test live_anikoto_cz_smoke_test_is_opt_in --lib
Never print complete resolved media URLs in test output or issue reports.