xiaohongshu-cli — Xiaohongshu CLI Tool

Binary: xhs Credentials: browser cookies (auto-extracted) or browser-assisted QR login (--qrcode)

Setup

# Install (requires Python 3.10+)
uv tool install xiaohongshu-cli
# Or: pipx install xiaohongshu-cli

# Upgrade to latest (recommended to avoid API errors)
uv tool upgrade xiaohongshu-cli
# Or: pipx upgrade xiaohongshu-cli

Authentication

IMPORTANT FOR AGENTS: Before executing ANY xhs command, check if credentials exist first. Do NOT assume cookies are configured.

Step 0: Check if already authenticated

xhs status --yaml >/dev/null && echo "AUTH_OK" || echo "AUTH_NEEDED"

If AUTH_OK, skip to Command Reference. If AUTH_NEEDED, proceed to Step 1. Prefer --qrcode when browser cookie extraction is unavailable but launching a browser is acceptable.

Step 1: Guide user to authenticate

Ensure user is logged into xiaohongshu.com in any browser supported by browser_cookie3. Supported browsers: Chrome, Arc, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Chromium, Opera, Opera GX, Vivaldi, LibreWolf, Lynx, w3m. Then:

xhs login                              # auto-detect browser with valid cookies
xhs login --cookie-source arc          # specify browser explicitly
xhs login --qrcode                     # browser-assisted QR login with terminal QR output

Verify with:

xhs status
xhs whoami

Step 2: Handle common auth issues

Agent Defaults

All machine-readable output uses the envelope documented in SCHEMA.md. Payloads live under .data.

• Non-TTY stdout → auto YAML
• --json / --yaml → explicit format
• OUTPUT=json env → global override
• OUTPUT=rich env → force human output

Command Reference

Reading

Interactions (Write)

Social

Creator

Account

Agent Workflow Examples

Search → Read → Like pipeline

NOTE_ID=$(xhs search "美食推荐" --json | jq -r '.data.items[0].id')
xhs read "$NOTE_ID" --json | jq '.data'
xhs like "$NOTE_ID"

Browse trending food notes

xhs hot -c food --json | jq '.data.items[:5] | .[].note_card | {title, likes: .interact_info.liked_count}'

Get user info then follow

xhs user 5f2e123 --json | jq '.data.basic_info | {nickname, user_id}'
xhs follow 5f2e123

Check notifications

xhs unread --json | jq '.data'
xhs notifications --type mentions --json | jq '.data.message_list[:5]'

Analyze all comments on a note

# Fetch ALL comments and analyze themes
xhs comments "$NOTE_URL" --all --json | jq '.data.comments | length'
# Count questions
xhs comments "$NOTE_URL" --all --json | jq '[.data.comments[] | select(.content | test("[\uff1f?]"))] | length'

Daily reading workflow

# Browse recommendation feed
xhs feed --yaml

# Interactive short-index workflow
xhs search "旅行"
xhs read 1
xhs comments 1
xhs like 1
xhs favorite 1
xhs comment 1 -c "收藏了"

# Browse trending by category
xhs hot -c food --yaml
xhs hot -c travel --yaml

QR code login

# When browser cookie extraction is not available
xhs login --qrcode
# → Launches a browser-assisted login flow
# → Renders QR in terminal using Unicode half-blocks
# → Scan with Xiaohongshu app → confirm → export cookies

URL to insights pipeline

# User pastes a URL → read + all comments
xhs read "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/xxx?xsec_token=yyy" --json
xhs comments "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/xxx?xsec_token=yyy" --all --json

Hot Categories

Available for xhs hot -c <category>: fashion, food, cosmetics, movie, career, love, home, gaming, travel, fitness

Error Codes

Structured error codes returned in the error.code field:

• not_authenticated — cookies expired or missing
• verification_required — captcha/verification needed
• ip_blocked — IP rate limited
• signature_error — request signing failed
• api_error — upstream API error
• unsupported_operation — operation not available

Limitations

• No video download — cannot download note images/videos
• No DMs — cannot access private messages
• No live streaming — live features not supported
• No following/followers list — XHS web API doesn't expose these endpoints
• Single account — one set of cookies at a time
• Rate limited — built-in Gaussian jitter delay (~1-1.5s) between requests; aggressive usage may trigger captchas or IP blocks

Anti-Detection Notes for Agents

• Do NOT parallelize requests — the built-in rate-limit delay exists for account safety
• Captcha recovery: if NeedVerifyError occurs, the client auto-cools-down with increasing delays (5s→10s→20s→30s). Ask the user to complete captcha in browser before retrying
• Batch operations: when doing bulk work (e.g., reading many notes), add time.sleep() between CLI calls
• Session stability: all requests in a session share a consistent browser fingerprint. Restarting the CLI creates a new fingerprint session

Safety Notes

• Do not ask users to share raw cookie values in chat logs.
• Prefer local browser cookie extraction over manual secret copy/paste.
• If auth fails, ask the user to re-login via xhs login.
• Agent should treat cookie values as secrets (do not echo to stdout unnecessarily).
• Built-in rate-limit delay protects accounts; do not bypass it.