Sonos CLI

SkillDev tools

Control Sonos speakers (discover/status/play/volume/group).

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the Sonos CLI skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by understudy-ai/understudy in skills/sonoscli/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Use sonos to control Sonos speakers on the local network.

Quick start

  • sonos discover
  • sonos status --name "Kitchen"
  • sonos play|pause|stop --name "Kitchen"
  • sonos volume set 15 --name "Kitchen"

Common tasks

  • Grouping: sonos group status|join|unjoin|party|solo
  • Favorites: sonos favorites list|open
  • Queue: sonos queue list|play|clear
  • Spotify search (via SMAPI): sonos smapi search --service "Spotify" --category tracks "query"

Notes

  • If SSDP fails, specify --ip <speaker-ip>.
  • Spotify Web API search is optional and requires SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID/SECRET.
  • If there is an error, check the troubleshooting section and offer advice if there is a decent match.

Troubleshooting

sonos discover - no route to host

  • On error Error: write udp4 0.0.0.0:64326->239.255.255.250:1900: sendto: no route to host (Command exited with code 1)
    • Note that the port number after 0.0.0.0: is ephemeral and will change and the netmask may not match exactly either
    • The sendto: no route to host should stay consistent
  • Advise the user that in direct (no Docker sandbox) mode on Mac OS that Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Local Network will need to be enabled for the top-level host parent process of the Gateway
    • node if running via launchd
    • Terminal if running the gateway directly in the terminal
    • Visual Studio Code if running via terminal in VS Code
  • An alternative option is to use sandbox (docker container) with network access allowed for that sandbox

sonos discover - bind: operation not permitted

  • On error Error: listen udp4 0.0.0.0:0: bind: operation not permitted
  • Advise the user that they may be running via a Codex or other sandbox that does not permit network access (this can be replicated by running sonos discover within a Codex CLI session with sandbox enabled and not approving the escalation request)

Signals

GitHub stars
456
Forks
34
Last commit
Jun 2026

ahel recommends instead

Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
sonoscli-understudy-ai
Source
github.com/understudy-ai/understudy