lebensmittelwarnung-cli

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

Check Germany's official product-warning portal (lebensmittelwarnung.de) from your terminal. lebensmittel is a command-line tool over the portal's official RSS feeds — the current recalls (Rückrufe) for food, cosmetics, and consumer products, narrowable by federal state and product type, as clean JSON you can pipe straight into jq.

• Current recalls — every active warning with its reason (Grund der Meldung), manufacturer, affected Bundesländer, batch/lot numbers and best-before dates.
• Filter by state and type — --state bayern, --type lebensmittel, combined or alone; both are applied server-side by the feed.
• Client-side narrowing — --since <date>, --search <term>, --limit <n>.
• 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 RSS feeds with zero dependencies? See DEVELOPING.md.

Install

npm i -g @maschinenlesbar.org/lebensmittelwarnung-cli
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This installs the lebensmittel command. Requires Node.js 20+. No API key.

Check it works:

lebensmittel warnings --limit 1 | jq '.[0].title'
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Quickstart

# The 5 most recent recalls, product name + reason
lebensmittel warnings --limit 5 | jq -r '.[] | "\(.title) — \(.reason // "?")"'

# Only recalls affecting Bavaria
lebensmittel warnings --state bayern | jq length

# Only food recalls since the start of the month
lebensmittel warnings --type lebensmittel --since 2026-07-01 \
  | jq -r '.[] | "\(.pubDate | split(" ")[1:4] | join(" "))\t\(.title)"'

# Search current recalls by product name
lebensmittel warnings --search schokolade | jq -r '.[].title'
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Commands

Command	What it shows
warnings	Current product warnings (recalls), filterable by --state / --type / --since / --search / --limit
states	The valid --state Bundesland slugs (offline)
types	The valid --type product-type slugs (offline)

New to terms like Rückruf, Grund der Meldung or the Bundesland slugs? The Glossary decodes every one.

warnings options

Option	Meaning
--state <slug>	Only warnings for one Bundesland — server-side filter. One of the 16 slugs from lebensmittel states (e.g. bayern, nordrheinwestfalen). An unknown slug is a usage error.
--type <slug>	Only warnings for one product type — server-side filter. One of lebensmittel, kosmetischemittel, bedarfsgegenstaende, mittelzumtaetowieren, babyundkinderprodukte.
--since <YYYY-MM-DD>	Only warnings published on or after this date, counted in German time (Europe/Berlin), client-side.
--search <term>	Only warnings whose product title contains this text, case-insensitive (client-side).
--limit <n>	Return at most n warnings, in feed order (most recent first).

--state and --type are validated against the fixed slug lists, so a typo fails at parse time (exit 2) rather than silently returning the full, unfiltered feed.

What a warning looks like

Each item carries typed accessors plus a generic fields map and the raw HTML:

{
  "title": "ja! Beerenmischung, tiefgefroren, 750 Gramm Beutel",
  "link": "https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de/.../Meldung.html",
  "pubDate": "Wed, 8 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0200",
  "published": "2026-07-08T14:00:00.000Z",
  "reason": "Krankheitserreger",
  "manufacturer": "Eurogroup España Frutas y Verduras S.A.U., …",
  "affectedStates": ["Nordrhein-Westfalen", "Bayern", "…"],
  "lotNumbers": "L-26085",
  "bestBefore": "Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum: 15.03.2028",
  "packaging": "750 Gramm",
  "imageUrls": ["https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de/.../Bild.jpg?__blob=normal&v=1"],
  "fields": { "Bildquelle": "© Firma …", "Grund der Meldung": "Krankheitserreger", "…": "…" },
  "rawDescription": "<img …/><br/><b>Grund der Meldung:</b> …"
}
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The typed fields are extracted from the feed's HTML <description>; fields is the complete label→value map (a superset, so a label this CLI does not model first-class is still there), and rawDescription keeps the original markup.

Output & scripting

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

# Reasons, grouped and counted (a warning can carry several, joined with ", ")
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '[.[] | (.reason // "?") | split(", ")[]] | group_by(.)[] | "\(.[0]): \(length)"'

# Recalls affecting a given Land (the same set --state hamburg returns)
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '.[] | select(.affectedStates | index("Hamburg")) | .title'

# All image URLs in the current recalls
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '.[].imageUrls[]?'
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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-RSS response (HTML shell) or an empty body

Troubleshooting

• command not found: lebensmittel — the global npm bin directory isn't on your PATH. Run npm bin -g to find it and add it.
• Exit 1 / "received an HTML page" — the feed URL returned the website's HTML shell instead of RSS (it may have moved). Check --base-url.
• Exit 1 / "Empty response … legacy JSON API" — the old megov.bayern.de JSON API (bundesAPI spec) is defunct and returns an empty body; this CLI uses the RSS feeds instead and does not touch it. If you see this, a proxy or a wrong --base-url returned an empty body.
• A filter returned everything — it didn't: --state/--type are validated, so an unknown value exits 2. --search/--since that match nothing return [].

Global options

Given before or after the command, e.g. lebensmittel --compact warnings:

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.lebensmittelwarnung.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)

Learn more

• 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 RSS parser, architecture, testing, CI.

Data license

This CLI is a client — it accesses data it does not own or redistribute. The warnings are © the publishing Länder / the BVL and licensed separately from this tool's code. See DATA_LICENSE.md.

lebensmittelwarnung.de — the portal's content is copyright-protected. Reuse is allowed only unaltered, in full, and with the prescribed source citation (Portal www.lebensmittelwarnung.de, [Jahr]: [Titel], [URL], Stand: [Datum]); partial/excerpted use and mixing with other sources are not permitted, and once a warning is withdrawn upstream you must delete your copy. This tool provides access; it does not grant you those rights — read DATA_LICENSE.md.

License

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.