music-podcast-research

Music & podcast research

Look up tracks, albums, artists, playlists, and podcast shows/episodes across Spotify, Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Discogs, and SoundCloud as normalized JSON from the Crawlora API — no scraping streaming-app pages.

When to use this skill

• "Find this track/album/artist on Spotify" / "what's on this playlist?"
• "Look up a Spotify user's public profile/playlists."
• "What podcasts/episodes are trending?" (Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts charts)
• "Get details for this podcast show/episode."
• "What pressings/releases exist for this record?" (Discogs — vinyl/collector data)
• "Look up this SoundCloud track/user" / "how many plays/likes does this track have?" / "what has this artist uploaded to SoundCloud?"

Setup (one-time)

• Get a free Crawlora API key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net.
• Set CRAWLORA_API_KEY in the environment before running the helper.
• The helper reads CRAWLORA_API_KEY from the environment and sends requests to https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1. Missing/invalid key → 401.

How it works

1. Spotify — search first: /spotify/search (or the scoped /spotify/tracks/search, /spotify/artists/search, /spotify/albums/search, /spotify/playlists/search, /spotify/profiles/search) with q. Detail endpoints (/spotify/track, /spotify/album, /spotify/artist, /spotify/playlist, /spotify/profile) accept either id or uri (a Spotify URI like spotify:track:...) — pass whichever you have. /spotify/artist/related, /spotify/track/recommended, and /spotify/track/similar-albums cover discovery.
2. Spotify Podcasts — /spotify-podcasts/search, /spotify-podcasts/show (by uri), /spotify-podcasts/show/episodes, /spotify-podcasts/charts.
3. Apple Podcasts — /apple-podcasts/search (term), /apple-podcasts/show/{id}, /apple-podcasts/show/{id}/episodes, /apple-podcasts/charts / /apple-podcasts/charts/rankings for what's popular by country.
4. Discogs — /discogs/search (q, optional type = release/master/ artist/label) to find an id, then /discogs/release/{id}, /discogs/master/{id}, /discogs/artist/{id}, /discogs/label/{id} for detail (+ /releases sub-paths for an artist's/label's catalog).
5. SoundCloud — /soundcloud/search (query) to find a track, then /soundcloud/track (url — a track's full permalink_url) for its full metadata and play/like/comment/repost counts. /soundcloud/profile (url — a user's profile URL) gets bio and follower/track counts; /soundcloud/user-tracks (url) lists that user's own uploads; /soundcloud/playlist (url) gets a playlist/album's metadata and full track list.

Full endpoint list, methods, and params: reference/endpoints.md.

Calling the API

# Spotify:
scripts/crawlora.sh /spotify/search q="Daft Punk" | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /spotify/artist id=4tZwfgrHOc3mvqYlEYSvVi | jq '.'

# Podcasts:
scripts/crawlora.sh /apple-podcasts/search term="Reply All" | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /spotify-podcasts/charts | jq '.'

# Discogs:
scripts/crawlora.sh /discogs/search q="Random Access Memories" type=release | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /discogs/release/4818226 | jq '.'

# SoundCloud:
scripts/crawlora.sh /soundcloud/search query="lofi hip hop" | jq '.'
scripts/crawlora.sh /soundcloud/track url="https://soundcloud.com/artist/track-name" | jq '.'

Use scripts/crawlora.sh for all requests; it keeps the API key out of command-line arguments.

Endpoint reference

See reference/endpoints.md for every Spotify, Spotify Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Discogs, and SoundCloud endpoint this skill uses.

Examples

• Artist deep-dive: /spotify/artist + /spotify/artist/albums + /spotify/artist/related for a full discography and similar-artist map.
• Podcast discovery: /spotify-podcasts/charts or /apple-podcasts/charts to find what's trending, then /spotify-podcasts/show/episodes for a show's back catalog.
• Collector research: /discogs/search for a release, then /discogs/release/{id} for pressing details (format, year, label, condition-relevant metadata).
• SoundCloud artist catalog: /soundcloud/profile for a user's follower/track counts, then /soundcloud/user-tracks for their own uploads with per-track play/like/comment/repost counts.

Notes & limits

• Credits / pay-on-success: billed only on 2xx; free tier 2,000 credits/mo. Key at https://crawlora.net.
• Public data only — public catalog/profile/chart pages.
• Security: key lives in CRAWLORA_API_KEY only — never hardcode, query-param, or commit it.
• Spotify detail endpoints need an id or uri — resolve one via the matching .../search endpoint first if you only have a name.
• SoundCloud detail endpoints need a full url (a track/playlist/user's permalink_url, e.g. https://soundcloud.com/artist/track-name) — there's no numeric-id lookup, so pull the URL from /soundcloud/search results first if you only have a name.
• Search endpoints are paginated (limit/offset or page) — walk pages for full coverage.