@maschinenlesbar.org/bundesrat-cli
    Preparing search index...

    @maschinenlesbar.org/bundesrat-cli

    bundesrat-cli

    CI Release npm

    Website: English · Deutsch — command reference, guides and API docs

    Follow Germany's Bundesrat — the chamber of the sixteen Länder — from your terminal. bundesrat is a command-line tool over the Bundesrat's public data feeds (the data behind the official Bundesrat app): the current plenary sitting's agenda and its Drucksachen, the members, and committee dates — as clean JSON you can pipe straight into jq.

    • The current sitting's agenda — every Tagesordnungspunkt (TOP) with its Drucksache number, in one command.
    • The members — all Bundesrat members with party and Land, filterable by --state / --party.
    • Open data only — the CLI surfaces just the openly-licensed facts (names, parties, Länder, TOP/Drucksache numbers, dates). The feeds' copyright editorial text and images are deliberately not exposed — see DATA_LICENSE.md.
    • No API key — the feeds are public.
    • Clean JSON output — pretty by default, --compact for scripting, -o <file> to write to disk.

    Want to use this as a TypeScript library, or curious how it parses the XML feeds with zero dependencies? See DEVELOPING.md.

    npm i -g @maschinenlesbar.org/bundesrat-cli

    This installs the bundesrat command. Requires Node.js 20+. No API key.

    Check it works:

    bundesrat session | jq '.title'

    # The current plenary sitting: title + agenda items with their Drucksachen
    bundesrat session | jq '{title, tops: [.tops[] | {toptitle, topdrucksache, topheader}]}'

    # Every member from Bavaria
    bundesrat members --state Bayern | jq -r '.[] | "\(.firstname) \(.name) — \(.party)"'

    # All Green members across the Länder
    bundesrat members --party grüne | jq length

    # Committee appointments with their dates
    bundesrat appointments | jq -r '.[] | "\(.startdate // "")\t\(.title)"'
    Command What it shows
    session Current plenary sitting: title, date and agenda items (TOPs) with their Drucksachen
    members Members of the Bundesrat (--state <Land>, --party <text>)
    appointments Committee appointments and dates (Termine)

    New to terms like TOP, Drucksache or Land? The Glossary decodes every one.

    Why only three commands? The Bundesrat feeds also carry news/press items, the BundesratKOMPAKT editorial summaries, the Stimmverteilung graphic, and the Präsidium / next-sitting HTML pages. Those return copyright-protected editorial text and images, not open data, so this CLI doesn't expose them (and strips the editorial fields — HTML detail, biographies, images — from the three it keeps). See DATA_LICENSE.md.

    Option Meaning
    --state <Land> Only members of that federal state — case-insensitive, exact Land match (e.g. Bayern, Baden-Württemberg)
    --party <text> Only members whose party contains this text — case-insensitive substring (e.g. grüne, CDU)

    Filtering happens client-side (the feed returns everyone), so both filters compose and an unmatched filter yields [] rather than the full list.

    Every command prints JSON to stdout; diagnostics go to stderr, so piping into jq stays clean.

    # How many agenda items in the current sitting?
    bundesrat session | jq '.tops | length'

    # Drucksachen on the agenda
    bundesrat session | jq -r '.tops[].topdrucksache | select(.)'

    # Members grouped by party (mitglied marks the 69 members; the rest are deputies and plenipotentiaries)
    bundesrat members | jq -r '[.[] | select(.mitglied == "true")] | group_by(.party)[] | "\(.[0].party // "no party given"): \(length)"'

    Use --compact for single-line JSON and -o <file> to write to a file — both are global options that work before or after the command.

    Exit codes make the CLI easy to use in scripts:

    Code Meaning
    0 Success (also --help / --version)
    2 Bad usage / invalid argument (nothing was sent)
    4 Not found (404 from the server)
    6 Network / transport failure (DNS, connection, timeout, size cap)
    1 Any other error — including a non-XML response (the feed returned the website's HTML shell)
    • command not found: bundesrat — the global npm bin directory isn't on your PATH. Run npm bin -g to find it and add it, or run via npx @maschinenlesbar.org/bundesrat-cli ….
    • Exit 1 / "received an HTML page" — the feed returned the website's HTML shell instead of XML (it may have moved). The CLI already adds the required ?view=renderXml render parameter; if this persists, the upstream feed changed.
    • Exit 6 / read ECONNRESET — the server dropped the connection. This happens now and then; --max-retries retries only 429/503 responses, not network errors, so run the command again.
    • Empty tops between sittings — outside an active sitting the agenda feed can be sparse: tops may be [] and session's title/header may be absent (both are optional), so guard for them in scripts.
    • A field you expected is missing — the CLI surfaces only openly-licensed factual fields; the feeds' HTML detail/abstract bodies, biographies and images are stripped on purpose (see DATA_LICENSE.md).

    Given before or after the command, e.g. bundesrat --compact session:

    Option Description
    -V, --version Print the version number
    -h, --help Show help for the program or a command
    --compact Print JSON on a single line instead of pretty-printed
    -o, --output <file> Write output to this file instead of stdout
    --base-url <url> API base URL (default https://www.bundesrat.de)
    --timeout <ms> Time limit per request, reading the whole response included (default 30000; 0 = none; at most 2147483647)
    --user-agent <ua> User-Agent header value
    --max-retries <n> Retries for transient 429/503 responses (0..10, default 2)
    --max-response-bytes <n> Cap response body size in bytes (0 = unlimited; default 100 MiB)
    • SKILLS.md — Claude Code Agent Skills that drive this CLI.
    • Usage.md — full use-case-driven cookbook.
    • GLOSSARY.md — every domain term explained.
    • DEVELOPING.md — TypeScript library usage, the XML parser, architecture, testing, CI.

    This CLI is a client — it accesses data it does not own or redistribute. The upstream data is © the Bundesrat and licensed separately from this tool's code. See DATA_LICENSE.md.

    Bundesrat — website content is copyright-protected (personal use only; commercial use / redistribution need permission), so cite "Quelle: Bundesrat" and don't republish editorial text or images without asking. The Drucksachen and Plenarprotokolle are amtliche Werke (§ 5 Abs. 2 UrhG) — free to reuse unaltered and with a source citation.

    Dual-licensed — use it under either:

    • AGPL-3.0-or-later (default, free). Note the AGPL's §13 network clause: if you run a modified version as a network service, you must offer that modified source to the service's users.
    • Commercial license (paid), for closed-source / proprietary or SaaS use without the AGPL's obligations.

    See LICENSING.md for details, and CONTRIBUTING.md for the contribution policy (this project does not accept external code contributions). Commercial enquiries: sebs@2xs.org.

    Settings
    Member Visibility

    On This Page
    bundesrat-cli