Skip to content
csdn

CLI reference

Every flag and subcommand for csdn.

csdn reads public CSDN data through its public web surfaces: the hot-rank board, blog search, article and profile pages, and the comment list under an article. No API key is required, and nothing is signed. Read operations also work over HTTP (csdn serve) and MCP (csdn mcp).

Run csdn <command> --help for the exact flag list on any command.

Global flags

These apply to every command. Output is a table at a terminal and JSONL when piped.

  -o, --output string      output: auto|table|markdown|json|jsonl|csv|tsv|url|raw (default "auto")
      --fields strings     comma-separated columns to show
      --no-header          omit the header row
      --template string    Go text/template applied per record
  -n, --limit int          stop after N records (0 = no limit)
  -q, --quiet              suppress progress output
  -v, --verbose            increase verbosity (repeatable)
      --color string       color: auto|always|never (default "auto")
      --rate duration      minimum delay between requests
      --timeout duration   per-request timeout
      --retries int        retry attempts on rate limit or 5xx (default -1)
      --user-agent string  override the User-Agent sent with each request
      --no-cache           bypass on-disk caches
      --data-dir string    override the data directory
      --profile string     named profile to load
      --db string          tee every record into a store (e.g. out.db, postgres://...)
      --dry-run            print actions, do not perform them

Read commands

csdn hot

The CSDN hot-rank board (CSDN热榜), in rank order, as ranked article rows.

Usage:
  csdn hot [flags]

Flags:
      --type string   rank board type

Fields: rank, id, type, title, author, username, score, views, comments, favors, url, cover, avatar. The id is the article id and type its kind (blog), so a hot row can be passed straight to article or comments.

The hot-rank board answers a plain anonymous GET and returns real data. -n caps the rows (default 25).

Blog search hits for a query. The query is variadic, so csdn search go modules is one query of two words. Emits SearchHit records.

Usage:
  csdn search [query...] [flags]

Flags:
      --type string   search type: blog|all|ask|download|bbs

Fields: type, id, title, author, username, summary, published, tags, views, likes, collects, comments, url. The url is the canonical article link, with CSDN's search tracking query stripped. The --type flag chooses the search index and defaults to blog.

csdn article

One article with its body. Accepts a full article URL or a username/id shorthand. A bare numeric id is rejected, because CSDN article URLs carry the author username in the path, so the page cannot be addressed by id alone. Parsed from the HTML page plus its embedded JSON-LD. Returns a single Article.

Usage:
  csdn article <url-or-ref> [flags]

Fields: id, title, author, username, summary, content, tags, published, updated, views, likes, collects, comments, pinned, cover, url. A direct article fetch leaves cover empty (CSDN's article pages carry no cover meta); it is filled when the article is listed through posts. The counters are read from the page toolbar (#blog-digg-num for likes, the #get-collection data-num for collects, .unlogin-comment-tit for comments).

csdn user

A public profile, addressed by username. Accepts a username or a profile URL. Read from the page's window.__INITIAL_STATE__ blob plus a tab-total JSON for the content counts. Returns a single User.

Usage:
  csdn user <username-or-url> [flags]

Fields: username, nickname, intro, level, code_age, region, school, company, registered, gender, vip, original_count, rank, fans, follows, loyal_fans, total_views, blog_count, column_count, download_count, ask_count, avatar, url.

csdn posts

A user's published articles. Accepts the same input as user. Emits Article records (the same shape as article, without the body).

Usage:
  csdn posts <username-or-url> [flags]

Fields: id, title, username, summary, tags, published, views, likes, collects, comments, pinned, cover, url. published is the exact post timestamp, pinned marks an article the author stuck to the top, and cover is the article's cover image. -n caps the rows (default 40).

csdn comments

Comments under an article. Accepts a full article URL, a username/id shorthand, or a bare numeric id (the comment list is keyed only by the article id). Emits Comment records.

Usage:
  csdn comments <url-or-ref> [flags]

Fields: id, article_id, text, author, nickname, parent_id, parent_nick, post_time, likes, region, avatar, url. Threads are flattened: a top-level comment is followed by its replies (which CSDN nests under sub), and a reply carries the parent_id and parent_nick of the comment it answers. -n caps the rows (default 50).

This is the surface most likely to be walled from a datacenter IP. When the edge serves a challenge it exits 4 (needs auth) rather than printing nothing as if it were a result.

Escape-hatch and server commands

csdn raw

Fetch a url and print its body untouched. An inspection escape hatch: fetches one endpoint and prints its raw body to stdout, including a challenge body when walled. Not a record stream, and not exposed over HTTP or MCP.

Usage:
  csdn raw <url> [flags]

csdn serve

Serve the read operations over HTTP (NDJSON). Each operation mounts at /v1/<command>; flags become query parameters and a positional argument can trail the path. The server also mounts GET /healthz and GET /v1/openapi.json.

Usage:
  csdn serve [flags]

Flags:
      --addr string    listen address (default ":8080")
      --allow-writes   expose write operations

csdn mcp

Run as an MCP server over stdio. Each read operation becomes an MCP tool whose argument schema is the operation's input struct.

Usage:
  csdn mcp [flags]

csdn completion

Generate the autocompletion script for bash, zsh, fish, or powershell.

Usage:
  csdn completion <shell>

csdn version

Print version information.

Usage:
  csdn version [flags]

Flags:
      --short   print just the version number

Exit codes

Code Meaning
0 ok
1 generic error
2 usage
3 no results
4 needs auth / anti-bot wall
5 rate limited
6 not found
7 unsupported
8 network

A surface that the anti-bot edge challenges maps to exit 4 (needs auth). That is the honest "this needs a residential session" outcome, distinct from a genuine empty result (exit 3) and from a missing record (exit 6).

6 min read