Cantinarr

Your media server just learned to run itself.

cantinarr.com · Live demo · iPhone beta · Android beta · Request a feature

Discover and request movies, TV shows, and books. Get push notifications. Manage Radarr, Sonarr, Chaptarr, and your download clients. When downloads get stuck, Cantinarr diagnoses the cause and recommends the next step. You set the agent's operating boundaries. Your household gets the simple experience; you keep control of access, approvals, and quality.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Cantinarr Server (Go, single container, port 8585)          │
│                                                              │
│  ┌──────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌────────────────┐   │
│  │ Auth/JWT │ │ Requests  │ │ Issues +│ │ AI Chat        │   │
│  │ Passkeys │ │+ Approvals│ │ AI Agent│ │ + 38 AI Tools  │   │
│  └──────────┘ └─────┬─────┘ └─────────┘ └────────────────┘   │
│                     │                                        │
│  ┌──────────────────┴───────────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  │
│  │  ID Bridge: TMDB → Trakt → TVDB      │  │ TMDB/Trakt   │  │
│  │  (cached 30 days)                    │  │ discovery    │  │
│  └───┬──────────┬──────────┬────────────┘  └──────────────┘  │
│      │          │          │                                 │
│  ┌───┴───┐ ┌────┴───┐ ┌────┴─────┐ ┌───────────────────────┐ │
│  │Radarr │ │ Sonarr │ │ Chaptarr │ │ Flutter Web (embedded)│ │
│  └───┬───┘ └────┬───┘ └────┬─────┘ └───────────────────────┘ │
└──────┼──────────┼──────────┼─────────────────────────────────┘
       │          │          │        ▲ webhooks push external
  ┌────▼───┐ ┌────▼───┐ ┌────▼─────┐    changes back instantly
  │ Radarr │ │ Sonarr │ │ Chaptarr │  (+ SABnzbd, qBittorrent,
  └────────┘ └────────┘ └──────────┘   NZBGet, Transmission,
                                       Tautulli, push gateway)

┌───────────────────────────────┐
│  Cantinarr App (Flutter)      │      ┌─────────────────────┐
│  Discovery, Requests, Books,  │─────>│  Cantinarr Backend  │
│  Arr control, AI, Issues,     │ REST │  (the only API the  │
│  Push notifications           │ + WS │   app talks to)     │
└───────────────────────────────┘      └─────────────────────┘

Why Cantinarr?

• Zero-config requesting -- Your users never see API keys, TVDB IDs, or quality profiles. They browse, they tap, it works.
• TMDB + Trakt for discovery -- The best metadata, images, and trending data, proxied through the server so keys stay off devices -- and TMDB works out of the box on a built-in key, no signup needed. Sonarr's TVDB dependency is invisible.
• You choose what "popular" means -- The headline row on the Movies and TV tabs reads TMDB weekly trending, or Trakt trending (ranked by who is actually watching), or TMDB's all-time popularity ranking. Connect Trakt and the rows switch to it automatically -- no second setting to find. An English-only switch keeps the discovery and recommendation rows to English-language originals; it ships on, and search always finds everything either way.
• Automatic ID bridging -- TMDB-to-TVDB translation with Trakt fallback. The #1 source of failed Sonarr adds, solved.
• Books too -- A Chaptarr (Readarr-API) module with per-format smarts: tap a book's eBook or Audiobook row to request that format; monitored formats read Requested until they download; owned-aware search and plain per-format controls stay pinned to the selected, authorized Chaptarr instance. Access is granted per user, and the Books tab opens on a Recently Added row so a book that just landed is visible without searching for it.
• Take available files with you -- Optional, resumable downloads let signed-in users save exact ebook, audiobook, movie, and episode files from their authorized library. Cantinarr re-checks the live arr file record before issuing a short-lived, file-scoped link without putting arr credentials in the URL.
• Request approvals -- Optional approval queue, globally or per user. Admins also control per-user season choice, quality choice, and default quality profiles. Approve/deny lands as a push notification for the requester.
• AI assistant -- "What should I watch tonight?" Every user can bring a personal Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or xAI Grok API key, or link a subscription account with a one-time browser code -- OpenAI (OAuth) through ChatGPT, or xAI Grok (OAuth) through SuperGrok / X Premium+ -- even without included access, and their choice never has to match the server's provider. Admins can configure the same providers as an included server profile and grant that shared access per user. A personal provider is an explicit override; Cantinarr never silently spends the shared account when that override needs attention. The assistant searches your library, checks availability, requests for you, and gives admins conversational queue and release control.
• AI remediation agent -- Users tap "Report a problem" (or Cantinarr detects one itself, in the queue or as it imports); each report is bound to the exact Radarr/Sonarr instance and begins with a quiet observation window. Cantinarr gives Sonarr/Radarr time to retry or replace a download before it alerts anyone or starts the agent; a persistent quiet problem then enters the supervised workflow. Recovery cancels stale proposals before dispatch. Automatic resolution requires an exact changed file plus a matching post-incident import record—not queue disappearance or a file that was already there. One whole class of this never needs reporting. The moment Sonarr says it imported an episode that has not aired yet, Cantinarr checks that season against its own air dates: a file your service imported before that episode aired cannot be that episode, and a season already holding files for episodes that have not aired is content that does not exist yet. When that is what happened, the season is already waiting in your issues with a fix attached — one issue for the whole season however many bogus files arrived, and an instance with no instant updates configured gets the same check on a quarter-hour timer instead. One approval fixes it: the agent proposes deleting exactly those files, blocklisting the releases that delivered them, and searching for replacements — only the episodes that have actually aired, leaving the rest of the season for your service to grab as it comes out. One problem, one decision; you are never asked to approve the second half of a fix you already approved. When the fix lands on something you reported, you are the one who says whether it worked -- "This is fixed" closes your own report, so an admin is never asked to adjudicate content they haven't watched. Tired of approving the same fix? Checking "Always approve" on an approval arms a standing rule for that exact problem-and-fix pair (force imports and destructive queue actions stay separate opt-ins): future matches are approved and executed without paging you, and the rule pauses itself the moment a fix fails or an issue closes out unresolved. Some problems should not be repaired again. When the same fault keeps coming back on one service -- on separate days, not just across a dozen titles in one bad minute -- Cantinarr says so once and names the setting that would stop it: the free-space floor, the remote path mapping, the indexer whose torrents have no seeders behind them. That is advice and never an edit; Cantinarr changes no setting on your services. Closing the notice is what mutes it -- for a couple of months if you fixed it, for a year if you told Cantinarr you are not going to -- and it only ever comes back if the problem does. Where there is no honest answer to give, nothing is raised at all. Remediation is server-owned: it always uses the admin's shared API key or shared OAuth connection (OpenAI or xAI Grok) and never a reporter's personal provider or per-user included-access grant. Admins may give remediation its own tested model designation while keeping that global provider and credential.
• MCP server -- 36 of the 38 in-app AI tools are exposed as a Model Context Protocol endpoint at /mcp, with OAuth discovery, browser/passkey login, dynamic client registration, and persistent rotating refresh tokens. The two quality-profile mutation tools remain in-app-only because their one-use safety handoff depends on authenticated in-app chat-turn provenance. This inbound OAuth lets external clients access Cantinarr; it is separate from the outbound personal/shared OpenAI OAuth used by Codex chat. Every tool can be toggled on/off from Settings > AI Tools.
• *Deep arr control -- SABnzbd, qBittorrent, NZBGet, and Transmission modules with live queue management (an aggregate All view with a master pause across every client when several are configured), plus drill-down Radarr/Sonarr control: series → season → episode with per-item progress, quality, and history; episode multi-select with batch search; long-press action menus; Edit Series; interactive release search everywhere. Admin AI/MCP tools can inspect quality profiles and import or update native/TRaSH custom formats across Radarr, Sonarr, and Chaptarr. After an explicit admin request, in-app AI previews and autonomously applies a narrow profile score, cutoff, or upgrade-policy change in the same authenticated chat turn. AI/MCP profile and custom-format writes are recorded under Settings > Configuration history for later review and live comparison. Each applied quality-profile update can be restored once, only while Cantinarr's instance, profile, and dependency guards still match; the linked restore is final, and custom-format entries are review-only.
• Import Doctor -- when a download is stuck, Cantinarr explains why in plain English (sample file, un-extracted archive, unconfirmed TheXEM mapping, "not an upgrade", unparseable/invalid file, remote-path-mapping or download-client problems, stalled torrent, permissions...) and offers one-click fixes with full transparency: manual/force import with the candidate files shown, remove + blocklist + re-search, hand-off to a tool like Unpackerr, or rescan. Cantinarr clears the stuck item and leaves the replacement to your service's own settings — with one exception: when the download was only an upgrade for something you already have and nothing asked for it (your service picked it up on its own), it is simply dropped. Your copy stays watchable, and a better version is still picked up whenever one shows up. The same diagnosis backs the app, the AI assistant, the remediation agent, and MCP.
• Flexible requests -- request a whole title in one tap, or pick exactly which seasons (or book formats) you want; partially-available shows surface per-season availability and a one-tap path to request the rest.
• Always in sync -- availability is computed live from the arrs (never from a stale snapshot), and server-managed Radarr/Sonarr/Chaptarr webhooks -- installed automatically the moment you add an instance -- push manual imports, deletes, and adds into the app the moment they happen without exposing callback credentials to a device. Books gain the most: an ebook can finish downloading between two polls, so instant updates are what make its "ready to read" alert reliable.
• Push notifications -- APNs (iOS) and FCM (Android) via a self-hosted push gateway with zero-config auto-enrollment: new-content alerts for movies, episodes, and books, approval/issue alerts for admins, per-user preference toggles, deep links into the right screen.
• Plex onboarding -- new users request access right from the in-app guide with their Plex email. Link your Plex account once and the ser