apple-music

Apple Music Integration

Guide for integrating with Apple Music. Three approaches: AppleScript (direct control), UI automation (catalog without API), and MusicKit API (cross-platform).

When to Use

Invoke when users ask to:

Manage playlists (create, add/remove tracks, list)
Control playback (play, pause, skip, volume)
Play an Apple Music URL (album, playlist, or song)
Search catalog or library
Add songs to library
Access listening history or recommendations

Critical Rule: Library-First Workflow

You CANNOT add catalog songs directly to playlists.

Songs must be in the user's library first:

❌ Catalog ID → Playlist (fails)
✅ Catalog ID → Library → Playlist (works)

Why: Playlists use library IDs (i.abc123), not catalog IDs (1234567890).

This applies to both AppleScript and API approaches.

AppleScript (macOS)

Zero setup. Works immediately with the Music app.

Run via Bash:

osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to playpause'
osascript -e 'tell application "Music" to return name of current track'

Multi-line scripts:

osascript <<'EOF'
tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    return {name of t, artist of t}
end tell
EOF

Available Operations

Category	Operations
Playback	play, pause, stop, resume, next track, previous track, fast forward, rewind, play URL
Player State	player position, player state, sound volume, mute, shuffle enabled/mode, song repeat
Current Track	name, artist, album, duration, time, rating, loved, disliked, genre, year, track number
Library	search, list tracks, get track properties, set ratings
Playlists	list, create, delete, rename, add tracks, remove tracks, get tracks
AirPlay	list devices, select device, current device

Track Properties (Read)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    -- Basic info
    name of t           -- "Hey Jude"
    artist of t         -- "The Beatles"
    album of t          -- "1 (Remastered)"
    album artist of t   -- "The Beatles"
    composer of t       -- "Lennon-McCartney"
    genre of t          -- "Rock"
    year of t           -- 1968

    -- Timing
    duration of t       -- 431.0 (seconds)
    time of t           -- "7:11" (formatted)
    start of t          -- start time in seconds
    finish of t         -- end time in seconds

    -- Track info
    track number of t   -- 21
    track count of t    -- 27
    disc number of t    -- 1
    disc count of t     -- 1

    -- Ratings
    rating of t         -- 0-100 (20 per star)
    loved of t          -- true/false
    disliked of t       -- true/false

    -- Content rating. DO NOT trust this for filtering.
    -- On Apple Music (cloud) tracks this property is unset, and reading it
    -- RAISES "A descriptor type mismatch occurred" rather than returning
    -- false. Catching that and defaulting to false is what turns "I could
    -- not tell" into "this is clean": on a real 463-track playlist Music.app
    -- yielded zero explicit tracks where the catalog rated eight of them
    -- explicit. If a caller asked for clean content, resolve the rating
    -- against the catalog (`contentRating == "explicit"`, matching on name
    -- AND artist) and report anything you could not verify as unknown.
    explicit of t       -- true/false, RAISES on most cloud tracks

    -- Playback
    played count of t   -- 42
    played date of t    -- date last played
    skipped count of t  -- 3
    skipped date of t   -- date last skipped

    -- IDs
    persistent ID of t  -- "ABC123DEF456"
    database ID of t    -- 12345
end tell

Track Properties (Writable)

tell application "Music"
    set t to current track
    set rating of t to 80          -- 4 stars
    set loved of t to true
    set disliked of t to false
    set name of t to "New Name"    -- rename track
    set genre of t to "Alternative"
    set year of t to 1995
end tell

Player State Properties

tell application "Music"
    player state          -- stopped, playing, paused, fast forwarding, rewinding
    player position       -- current position in seconds (read/write)
    sound volume          -- 0-100 (read/write)
    mute                  -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle enabled       -- true/false (read/write)
    shuffle mode          -- songs, albums, groupings
    song repeat           -- off, one, all (read/write)
    current track         -- track object
    current playlist      -- playlist object
    current stream URL    -- URL if streaming
end tell

Playback Commands

tell application "Music"
    -- Play controls
    play                          -- play current selection
    pause
    stop
    resume
    playpause                     -- toggle play/pause
    next track
    previous track
    fast forward
    rewind

    -- Play specific content
    play (first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude")
    play user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Settings
    set player position to 60     -- seek to 1:00
    set sound volume to 50        -- 0-100
    set mute to true
    set shuffle enabled to true
    set song repeat to all        -- off, one, all
end tell

Matching titles with typographic punctuation / accents

whose name contains "..." is glyph-exact — unlike Music's native search command, it does not fold a straight apostrophe (U+0027) against the curly one (U+2019) Music often stores, nor accents. So whose name contains "That's a No No" misses a title stored as That's a No No. Two robust strategies:

-- 1. Match the quote-free fragments instead of the apostrophe itself.
--    Works regardless of which apostrophe variant is stored or typed.
play (first track of library playlist 1 whose ¬
    (name contains "That" and name contains "s a No No"))

-- 2. For accents/ellipsis/anything: bulk-fetch names in ONE Apple Event and
--    fold in-memory. `ignoring punctuation and diacriticals` uses Apple's
--    Unicode tables (curly quotes, ellipses, café≈cafe). Do NOT access
--    `name of t` per-iteration in a loop — that is one Apple Event per track
--    (~17s on a 12k library); fetch the whole list at once (~instant).
tell application "Music"
    set allNames to (get name of every track of library playlist 1)
    set idx to 0
    ignoring punctuation and diacriticals
        repeat with i from 1 to (count of allNames)
            if ((item i of allNames) as text) contains "Fur Elise" then
                set idx to i
                exit repeat
            end if
        end repeat
    end ignoring
    if idx > 0 then play (track idx of library playlist 1)
end tell

Library Queries

tell application "Music"
    -- All library tracks
    every track of library playlist 1

    -- Search by name
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by artist
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose artist contains "Beatles"

    -- Search by album
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose album contains "Abbey Road"

    -- Combined search
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey" and artist contains "Beatles"

    -- By genre
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose genre is "Rock"

    -- By year
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose year is 1969

    -- By rating
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose rating > 60  -- 3+ stars

    -- Favorite (loved) tracks. Music.app renamed Loved -> Favorite and the
    -- property with it: newer versions use `favorited`, older use `loved`,
    -- and the unsupported name can fail INSIDE a whose-filter with "The
    -- variable loved is not defined". Try `whose favorited is true` first,
    -- fall back to `whose loved is true`, each wrapped in `try`.
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose favorited is true
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose loved is true  -- legacy Music versions

    -- Recently played (sort by played date)
    tracks of library playlist 1 whose played date > (current date) - 7 * days
end tell

Playlist Operations

tell application "Music"
    -- List all playlists
    name of every user playlist

    -- Get playlist
    user playlist "Road Trip"
    first user playlist whose name contains "Road"

    -- Create playlist
    make new user playlist with properties {name:"New Playlist", description:"My playlist"}

    -- Delete playlist. Match the name EXACTLY; a `contains` fallback here
    -- turns "Work" into "Workout".
    delete user playlist "Old Playlist"

    -- Rename playlist
    set name of user playlist "Old Name" to "New Name"

    -- Get playlist tracks
    every track of user playlist "Road Trip"
    name of every track of user playlist "Road Trip"

    -- Get the FIRST N, one Apple Event per property. Read the range off the
    -- playlist itself. Do NOT stash the tracks in a variable first --
    -- `set t to tracks of pl` materializes a plain list, and a property of a
    -- plain list does not distribute: Music raises -1728 and names every
    -- track of the playlist in the error message.
    set pl to user playlist "Road Trip"
    set n to 25
    if n > (count of tracks of pl) then set n to (count of tracks of pl)
    if n < 1 then return {}                        -- `tracks 1 thru 0` errors
    get name of tracks 1 thru n of pl as list      -- `as list`: n=1 returns a
                                                   -- bare value, not a list

    -- Add track to playlist (must be library track)
    set targetPlaylist to user playlist "Road Trip"
    set targetTrack to first track of library playlist 1 whose name contains "Hey Jude"
    duplicate targetTrack to targetPlaylist

    -- Remove track from playlist. `contains` + `first` is a TRAP for anything
    -- destructive: it deletes whichever match sorts first, irreversibly.
    -- "Love" matches 376 tracks in a real library; "Alice" matches three
    -- playlists including a 467-track one. Enumerate first and act only when
    -- the target is unambiguous.
    set hits to (every track of user playlist "Road Trip" whose name contains "Hey Jude")
    if (count of hits) is 1 then
        delete (item 1 of hits)
    else
        -- report the candidates and let the user choose; do not guess
    end if

    -- Playlist properties
    duration of user playlist "Road Trip"   -- total duration
    time of user playlist "Road Trip"       -- formatted duration
    count of tracks of user playlist "Road Trip"
end tell

AirPlay

tell application "Music"
    -- List AirPlay devices
    name of every AirPlay device

    -- Get current device
    current AirPlay devices

    -- Set output device
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room"}

    -- Multiple devices
    set current AirPlay devices to {AirPlay device "Living Room", AirPlay device "Kitchen"}

    -- Device properties
    set d to AirPlay device "Living Room"
    name of d
    kind of d           -- computer, AirPort Express, Apple TV, AirPlay device, Bluetooth device
    active of d         -- true if playing
    available of d      -- true if reachable
    selected of d       -- true if in current devices
    sound volume of d   -- 0-100
end tell

String Escaping

Always escape user input:

def escape_applescript(s):
    return s.replace('\\', '\\\\').replace('"', '\\"')

safe_name = escape_applescript(user_input)
script = f'tell application "Music" to play user playlist "{safe_name}"'

Common Failures

osascript stderr messages map to a small set of environmental states. When AppleScript fails, classify before deciding what to tell the user — surfacing the raw stderr is misleading; cascading silently to an API path leaks unrelated errors (e.g. "Developer token not found" when the real problem was Music.app being closed).

Stderr signal	What it means	What to tell the user
`(-609)`, `Connection is invalid`, `(-10810)`, `isn't running`, `Can't get application "Music"`	Music.app isn't running or has crashed mid-session	"Music.app isn't running. Open it and retry."
`(-1743)`, `Not authorized`, `not allowed assistive access`, `assistive access`	The host process (Claude Desktop, Python CLI, Terminal) hasn't been granted Automation permission for Music	"Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation, find the app running this code, enable the 'Music' toggle."
`AppleScript timed out after 30 seconds`	The 30s subprocess timeout fired — Music.app stuck or still launching	"Music.app may be unresponsive — quit and reopen it."
`syntax error`, `expected … but found …`	The script itself is malformed (developer bug)	Report the raw error — this is on us, not the user.
Anything else	Logic-level error (track not found, playlist empty, etc.)	Surface the raw stderr; safe to cascade to API if a legitimate fallback exists.

Don't bare-match not allowed — Music.app emits "operation not allowed on smart playlists" and similar logic-level errors that should NOT classify as Automation-denial. Match the full not allowed assistive or assistive access phrase.

Don't gate on is_available() alone — that only checks darwin + osascript exists. It can't tell you whether Music.app is running or whether Automation permissions have been granted. The error-categorization above is your only signal for those states.

Limitations

macOS only — no Windows/Linux
UI features require display — UI automation won't work headless or with Music.app minimized
Music.app must be running — is_available() returns True as soon as osascript is on PATH, but every tell application "Music" block needs Music.app actually running. First call after a fresh boot may also trigger an Automation-permission prompt the user has to approve once.

UI Automation (macOS)

Add-to-library/playlist UI automation was removed in 0.15.0. Catalog add-to-library and auto_add→playlist run over the unified Apple Music API (developer token generated or sourced from Apple's public web player, plus a media-user-token). The old UI add path was version-fragile (it broke across macOS/Music.app releases, #37). To enable the API path: applemusic-mcp login (or login --dev with a developer token). On macOS login defaults to reading the media-user-token from a signed-in Safari — no Chrome/Playwright — provided Safari → Settings → Advanced → Develop → "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" is enabled; login --chrome uses the Chrome web player instead (needs pip install 'applemusic-mcp[browser]'). Off macOS, login opens Chrome (Playwright ships by default there). The UI primitives below remain only for playback / play-from-URL and catalog search, not for adding.

Engines (mode pref / per-call engine=): auto (default — native Music.app for playback, Safari for the Up Next queue, the API for data on macOS; Chrome off-mac), native, safari, chrome, api. The Safari engine drives your signed-in Safari's MusicKit through the same do JavaScript channel (DRM-native, no Chrome) for play/control/now_playing/settings and the full queue — so on macOS the whole web-player surface works without Playwright. Using the queue makes its engine the active one, so playback control reaches it.

The remaining UI automation controls Music.app through System Events (Accessibility API) and CoreGraphics (mouse events).

Requirements: Display attached, Music.app visible, Accessibility permissions for System Events (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility).

Key Concepts

System Events reads and clicks UI elements by their accessibility hierarchy:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    -- Main content area
    scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
    -- Search field
    text field 1 of UI element 1 of row 1 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Music"
end tell

CoreGraphics mouse events (via JXA) generate real mouse input — hover, click, and double-click:

// osascript -l JavaScript
ObjC.import("CoreGraphics");
var point = $.CGPointMake(x, y);
// hover (reveals hidden controls):
$.CGEventPost($.kCGHIDEventTap, $.CGEventCreateMouseEvent($(), $.kCGEventMouseMoved, point, 0));
// click: post LeftMouseDown then LeftMouseUp at the point.
// double-click: post two down/up pairs with the click-state field (1) set to 1 then 2.

Critical: System Events click (AXPress) does not fire Music.app's custom Play/Shuffle buttons or track rows — it returns success but nothing plays. Read element rects with System Events, then click with CoreGraphics mouse events at the element's screen coordinates. A single click only selects a track row; double-click it to play.

Playing a catalog (non-library) track natively

AppleScript has no verb to play a non-library catalog track. Deep-link the page, then drive the UI with CoreGraphics:

open "music://…/album/<id>" (album/playlist) or …?i=<songId> (one track)
Album/playlist: locate the Play button, read its position+size, CoreGraphics-click its center.
Single track: match the track row by name in the track list, CoreGraphics double-click it (so only that track plays, not the whole album).

The Hover Trick (per-row controls)

Music.app hides per-track Play / "Add to Library" controls until the mouse hovers over a row:

Find the track's UI element position via System Events
Move the mouse there via CoreGraphics (generates real hover events)
The hidden checkbox (play) and button (Add to Library) appear in the accessibility tree
Click them via CoreGraphics at their coordinates (not System Events AXPress)

Search via UI

Set the search field value: set value of searchField to "query"
Press Return: key code 36
Wait for results to load (~4 seconds)
Parse the "Top Results" list from scroll area 2
Each result is a UI element with description = name, static texts for type/artist

Note: The type separator in results uses Unicode three-per-em space (U+2004) + middle dot (U+00B7): Song꘎·꘎Radiohead

Window Recovery

Music.app can run without a window. To ensure a window exists:

tell application "Music" to activate
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Music"
    if (count of windows) is 0 then
        click menu item "Music" of menu "Window" of menu bar 1
    end if
end tell

Fragility

UI paths break when Apple updates Music.app's layout. Centralize paths as constants and test after macOS updates. Use Accessibility Inspector.app to explore the current hierarchy.

The search field location changed between macOS 15 (sidebar outline row) and macOS 26/Tahoe (toolbar group). The server probes for the toolbar element at runtime using an AppleScript exists check and falls back to the sidebar path — so both OS versions are supported without hardcoding. If UI search ever breaks on a new macOS version, inspect the search field path first.

Tool routing (when to use which top-level action)

When a user asks for something, the right MCP tool depends on whether they're searching their library or the catalog. Easy to confuse — gating wrong here leads users into "Developer token not found" rabbit holes when the operation could have worked tokenlessly.

Goal	Use	Notes
Find a song the user already has	`library(action='search', query='...')`	Local library only. AppleScript on macOS, API otherwise.
Find a playlist by name	`playlist(action='list', filter='alice')`	Loose name match, returns matching playlists with IDs. Do not use `action='search'` for this — that searches the tracks inside a given playlist and needs a `playlist` param.
List the user's tracks in a genre	`library(action='search', query='Rock', types='genre')`	Filters on the track's genre field — macOS-only. Do NOT route a genre name through plain full-text search: it never looks at the genre field, so "Rock" would false-match a song titled "Rock Your Body." Zero matches returns "No tracks found"; off macOS it reports genre filtering isn't available via the API.
Find a song in Apple Music's full catalog	`catalog(action='search', query='...')`	Tries API first, falls back to Music.app UI search on tokenless macOS.
Add a catalog song to the user's library	`library(action='add', track='...')`	API only — needs a developer token (generated or harvested) + a media-user-token (`signin`). The UI-automation fallback was removed in 0.15.0 (see note above).
Add a song (in library OR catalog) to a playlist	`playlist(action='add', track='...', auto_add=True)`	`auto_add=True` is required to reach the catalog when the song isn't already in the library. Default is False to avoid unwanted library writes — set it to True for "fill this playlist" workflows.
Browse charts / recommendations	`discover`	API only. No UI fallback for this one.

library(action='search') returns one page: limit (default 25) caps the results and offset pages through larger result sets. The text header shows start-end of total, so when end < total there are more results — bump offset by limit to fetch the next page (mirrors action='browse').

If library(action='search') returns "No songs found in library", it is not a hint to set up an API token — it's a hint to try catalog(action='search') or playlist(action='add', auto_add=True) instead. The tokenless macOS path covers all of these.

Compound flows (no API)

Recipes for replicating applemusic-mcp's catalog features without an API token. Gate each user request on "does this need catalog access?" — pure library and playback ops stay in AppleScript; only catalog lookups go through UI automation.

Add a catalog song to the user's library

If the user gave a single combined string like "Silvera - GOJIRA", split on - before searching so the catalog query gets a clean name.

Step 0 — resolve the canonical title FIRST (do not skip this). Hit the free, tokenless iTunes Search API (https://itunes.apple.com/search?term=<name>+<artist>&entity=song&country=<storefront>) and pick the best match, scoring artist-primary: when the user named an artist, a result by a different artist is the wrong track even if its title is an exact match — reject it rather than risk a silent wrong-add (e.g. "Lemons"/"Brye" must resolve to Brye's "LEMONS (feat. Cavetown)", not "Lemons" by Hairitage). Use the resolved canonical title for the UI query below. This matters because Apple's autocomplete is ranking-sensitive: a vague query ("Lemons") surfaces popular homonyms and misses obscure tracks, while the canonical title ("LEMONS (feat. Cavetown)") makes the exact row appear.

Then, version-dependent surface:

macOS 26 / new Music (Music ≥ 1.6.x): the search autocomplete pop-over IS in the accessibility tree, and catalog deep-links no longer navigate. Use the pop-over:
1. UI search with the canonical title (§ Search via UI)
2. Pick the first Song result whose name + artist match — do not fall back to a non-Song result; fail cleanly if no Song matched. Stale search state can lead to wrong-result clicks otherwise.
3. Click the row → it navigates to the song detail page
4. Hover the track row via CoreGraphics — the hidden "Add to Library" button becomes reachable. If you find a "Download" button instead, the track is already in the library (that's success, not failure).
5. Click "Add to Library" via a real CoreGraphics click (SwiftUI buttons ignore AXPress)
macOS 15 / old Music (Music ≤ 1.5.x): the autocomplete pop-over is not in the accessibility tree, but open-ing the resolved music://…?i=… deep-link DOES navigate to the album page. Deep-link to the resolved URL, find the highlighted track row, hover, and click its "Add to Library" button there.

Finally: 6. Clear the search field so the next call starts from fresh state 7. Verify the add. The pop-over UI is authoritative for the iCloud library — trust its success even if the next step lags. Poll search_library / a direct library playlist 1 lookup until the track is visible locally (first appears ~3 s; iCloud can stall longer — cap at ~18 s). A verify miss after a UI-confirmed add means "still syncing," not "failed."

Add a catalog song to a specific playlist

Compose "add to library" (above) → then AppleScript duplicate the new library track into the target playlist:

tell application "Music"
    set targetTrack to first track of library playlist 1 ¬
        whose name contains "Silvera" and artist contains "GOJIRA"
    duplicate targetTrack to user playlist "Road Trip"
end tell

Don't click "Add to Playlist" menu items via UI — the AppleScript duplicate path is more reliable. Even if you have a dev token, don't hit POST /v1/me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks — it returns HTTP 500 for any playlist not originally created via API (the default for playlists made in Music.app). duplicate works for any playlist.

Write routing (sanctioned-first)

The server picks a write's path by credential and capability, not the playback mode:

Sanctioned — the official Apple Music API (api.music.apple.com) with a generated developer token. Preferred whenever a dev token is present and the op is supported.
Web — the web-player backend with a signed-in session token. Used only for the gaps the public API can't do (delete a playlist, add to a Music.app-created playlist, move out of a folder) or when there's no dev token.
Native — local Music.app via AppleScript on macOS (tokenless), the default writer on a Mac.

So mode=web (a playback choice) does NOT force writes onto the web path — a dev-token holder still writes via the official API. Star ratings need AppleScript (macOS) regardless of mode. Each write reports the path it took (via Apple Music API / via web player / via Music.app); config(action="status") shows the resolved rail on its Writes: line.

Post-add verification

The UI path can silently click the wrong result under stale search state, and AppleScript state lags briefly after a fresh add. Always verify the expected track actually landed:

tell application "Music"
    set matches to (every track of user playlist "Road Trip" ¬
        whose name contains "Silvera" and artist contains "GOJIRA")
    return (count of matches) > 0
end tell

Retry once after a ~1 s sleep before failing. If the second verify still fails, trust it — the add did not land, surface the error instead of claiming false success.

MusicKit API

Cross-platform but requires Apple Developer account ($99/year) and token setup.

Authentication

Requirements:

Apple Developer account
MusicKit key (.p8 file) from developer portal
Developer token (JWT, 180 day max)
User music token (browser OAuth)

Generate developer token:

import jwt, datetime

with open('AuthKey_XXXXXXXXXX.p8') as f:
    private_key = f.read()

token = jwt.encode(
    {
        'iss': 'TEAM_ID',
        'iat': int(datetime.datetime.now().timestamp()),
        'exp': int((datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(days=180)).timestamp())
    },
    private_key,
    algorithm='ES256',
    headers={'alg': 'ES256', 'kid': 'KEY_ID'}
)

Get user token: Browser OAuth to https://authorize.music.apple.com/woa

Headers for all requests:

Authorization: Bearer {developer_token}
Music-User-Token: {user_music_token}

Base URL: https://api.music.apple.com/v1

Rate Limits (read this before any bulk loop)

Apple throttles with HTTP 429 / code 42900 on a rolling ~60-minute window, and sends no Retry-After and no X-Rate-Limit header — remaining quota is unobservable, so you only find out by getting blocked.

Token	Practical ceiling	Notes
Your own developer token (`login --dev`, your `.p8`)	~3600 requests/hour, Apple's documented figure	Your quota alone
Apple's public web-player token (plain `login`, tokenless/Safari path)	a few hundred/hour, measured	Shared, not per-user — the ceiling is far lower and not yours to spend

Consequences that bite:

Waiting briefly does nothing. A 15-minute zero-traffic cooldown still 429s. It clears roughly an hour after the burst ends, then re-throttles after a few more requests. Every retry inside the window adds to the count keeping you blocked.
A 429 can look like an empty result, not an error. One search per track ("resolve title+artist → catalog id") is the standard import shape and the fastest way to hit this; if the caller treats an empty search as "song not found", a throttle silently produces false negatives. Treat empty-after-429 as unknown, never as absent, and never cache it.
For bulk work, use login --dev. Your own developer token gets its own, much larger quota. Reported and measured in #42.

Batch-resolve by ISRC instead of searching per track

Where the caller has ISRCs (Spotify / Rekordbox / Plex exports all carry them), GET /v1/catalog/{storefront}/songs?filter[isrc]=ISRC1,ISRC2,… resolves 25 per request and matches exactly — ~25x fewer requests than a search per track, and no fuzzy-match errors. Via the tool: catalog(action="resolve", isrcs="…", format="json").

Two things to get right, because filter[isrc] is a filter, not a search:

Misses are silent. Apple returns only what it matched and omits the rest, so the unresolved ISRCs exist only as a diff of your request set against attributes.isrc on the responses. Compute that diff — don't assume a full response.
Keep "asked and absent" separate from "never asked." If a batch fails (429) the remaining ISRCs have unknown status, not "not in the catalog." Collapsing the two recreates the false-negative bug this section exists to warn about.

One ISRC can map to several catalog songs (regional releases, remasters), so carry the match count rather than silently taking the first.

Without ISRCs, dry-run before you write. Title matching is fuzzy, and its failures are silent: Dont Let Me Down with no artist resolves to The Chainsmokers, not The Beatles. Resolve the whole list first, show the proposed matches with a confidence marker (exact vs. fuzzy), and only write once they've been reviewed — never interleave "search, then add" per track. Via the tool: catalog(action="resolve", tracks=..., format="json"), which adds nothing and returns ids ready for playlist(action="add") — or playlist(action="add", ..., dry_run=True) to preview against a specific playlist, which also diffs against what's already in it. Note this costs one request per track (Apple has no batch title+artist endpoint), so it is not a rate-limit fix — use ISRCs for that.

Manually:

resolved = {}
for i in range(0, len(isrcs), 25):
    batch = isrcs[i : i + 25]
    r = requests.get(
        f"https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/{storefront}/songs",
        headers=headers,
        params={"filter[isrc]": ",".join(batch)},
    )
    if r.status_code == 429:
        break                      # later batches only extend the window
    for song in r.json().get("data", []):
        resolved.setdefault(song["attributes"]["isrc"], song["id"])

Available Endpoints

Catalog (Public - dev token only)

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/catalog/{storefront}/search`	GET	Search songs, albums, artists, playlists
`/catalog/{storefront}/songs/{id}`	GET	Song details
`/catalog/{storefront}/albums/{id}`	GET	Album details
`/catalog/{storefront}/albums/{id}/tracks`	GET	Album tracks
`/catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}`	GET	Artist details
`/catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/albums`	GET	Artist's albums
`/catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/songs`	GET	Artist's top songs
`/catalog/{storefront}/artists/{id}/related-artists`	GET	Similar artists
`/catalog/{storefront}/playlists/{id}`	GET	Playlist details
`/catalog/{storefront}/charts`	GET	Top charts
`/catalog/{storefront}/genres`	GET	All genres
`/catalog/{storefront}/search/suggestions`	GET	Search autocomplete
`/catalog/{storefront}/stations/{id}`	GET	Radio station

Library (Requires user token)

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/me/library/songs`	GET	All library songs
`/me/library/albums`	GET	All library albums
`/me/library/artists`	GET	All library artists
`/me/library/playlists`	GET	All library playlists
`/me/library/playlists/{id}`	GET	Playlist details
`/me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks`	GET	Playlist tracks
`/me/library/search`	GET	Search library
`/me/library`	POST	Add to library
`/catalog/{sf}/songs/{id}/library`	GET	Get library ID from catalog ID

Playlist Management

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/me/library/playlists`	POST	Create playlist
`/me/library/playlists/{id}/tracks`	POST	Add tracks to playlist

Personalization

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/me/recommendations`	GET	Personalized recommendations
`/me/history/heavy-rotation`	GET	Frequently played
`/me/recent/played`	GET	Recently played
`/me/recent/added`	GET	Recently added

Ratings

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/me/ratings/songs/{id}`	GET	Get song rating
`/me/ratings/songs/{id}`	PUT	Set song rating
`/me/ratings/songs/{id}`	DELETE	Remove rating
`/me/ratings/albums/{id}`	GET/PUT/DELETE	Album ratings
`/me/ratings/playlists/{id}`	GET/PUT/DELETE	Playlist ratings

Storefronts

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/storefronts`	GET	All storefronts
`/storefronts/{id}`	GET	Storefront details
`/me/storefront`	GET	User's storefront

Common Query Parameters

Parameter	Description	Example
`term`	Search query	`term=beatles`
`types`	Resource types	`types=songs,albums`
`limit`	Results per page (max 25)	`limit=10`
`offset`	Pagination offset	`offset=25`
`include`	Related resources	`include=artists,albums`
`extend`	Additional attributes	`extend=editorialNotes`
`l`	Language code	`l=en-US`

Search Example

GET /v1/catalog/us/search?term=wonderwall&types=songs&limit=10

Response:
{
  "results": {
    "songs": {
      "data": [{
        "id": "1234567890",
        "type": "songs",
        "attributes": {
          "name": "Wonderwall",
          "artistName": "Oasis",
          "albumName": "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?",
          "durationInMillis": 258773,
          "releaseDate": "1995-10-02",
          "genreNames": ["Alternative", "Music"]
        }
      }]
    }
  }
}

Library-First Workflow (Complete)

Adding a catalog song to a playlist requires 4 API calls:

import requests

headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {dev_token}",
    "Music-User-Token": user_token
}

# 1. Search catalog
r = requests.get(
    "https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/us/search",
    headers=headers,
    params={"term": "Wonderwall Oasis", "types": "songs", "limit": 1}
)
catalog_id = r.json()['results']['songs']['data'][0]['id']

# 2. Add to library
requests.post(
    "https://api.music.apple.com/v1/me/library",
    headers=headers,
    params={"ids[songs]": catalog_id}
)

# 3. Get library ID (catalog ID → library ID)
r = requests.get(
    f"https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/us/songs/{catalog_id}/library",
    headers=headers
)
library_id = r.json()['data'][0]['id']

# 4. Add to playlist (library IDs only!)
requests.post(
    f"https://api.music.apple.com/v1/me/library/playlists/{playlist_id}/tracks",
    headers={**headers, "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={"data": [{"id": library_id, "type": "library-songs"}]}
)

Create Playlist

POST /v1/me/library/playlists
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "attributes": {
    "name": "Road Trip",
    "description": "Summer vibes"
  },
  "relationships": {
    "tracks": {
      "data": []
    }
  }
}

Ratings

# Love a song (value: 1 = love, -1 = dislike)
PUT /v1/me/ratings/songs/{id}
Content-Type: application/json

{"attributes": {"value": 1}}

Limitations

No playback control - API cannot play/pause/skip
Playlist editing - can only modify API-created playlists
Token management - dev tokens expire every 180 days
Rate limits - Apple enforces request limits

Common Mistakes

❌ Using catalog IDs in playlists:

# WRONG
json={"data": [{"id": "1234567890", "type": "songs"}]}

Fix: Add to library first, get library ID, then add.

❌ Playing catalog songs via AppleScript:

# WRONG
play track id "1234567890"

Fix: Song must be in library.

❌ Unescaped AppleScript strings:

# WRONG
name = "Rock 'n Roll"
script = f'tell application "Music" to play playlist "{name}"'

Fix: Escape quotes.

❌ Expired tokens: Dev tokens last 180 days max. Fix: Check expiration, handle 401 errors.

The Easy Way: applemusic-mcp

The applemusic-mcp MCP server handles all this complexity automatically: AppleScript escaping, token management, library-first workflow, ID conversions.

Install:

git clone https://github.com/epheterson/applemusic-mcp.git
cd applemusic-mcp && python3 -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Configure Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "Apple Music": {
      "command": "/path/to/applemusic-mcp/venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["-m", "applemusic_mcp"]
    }
  }
}

On macOS, most features work immediately. For catalog features or Windows/Linux, see the repo README.

Manual	applemusic-mcp
4 API calls to add song	`playlist(action="add", auto_add=True)`
Copy URL + open in Music	`playback(action="play", url="...")`
Add a catalog song to your library	`library(action="add")` (unified API — dev or web token)
Track library changes manually	`library(action="snapshot")`
AppleScript escaping	Automatic
Token management	Automatic with warnings

About this skill

When to Use

Critical Rule: Library-First Workflow

Available Operations

Track Properties (Read)

Track Properties (Writable)

Player State Properties

Playback Commands

Matching titles with typographic punctuation / accents

Library Queries

Playlist Operations

AirPlay

String Escaping

Common Failures

Limitations

Key Concepts

Playing a catalog (non-library) track natively

The Hover Trick (per-row controls)

Search via UI

Window Recovery

Fragility

Tool routing (when to use which top-level action)

Compound flows (no API)

Add a catalog song to the user's library

Add a catalog song to a specific playlist

Write routing (sanctioned-first)

Post-add verification

Authentication

Rate Limits (read this before any bulk loop)

Batch-resolve by ISRC instead of searching per track

Available Endpoints

Catalog (Public - dev token only)

Library (Requires user token)

Playlist Management

Personalization

Ratings

Storefronts

Common Query Parameters

Search Example

Library-First Workflow (Complete)

Create Playlist

Ratings

Limitations