---
title: "Adding MusicThread to My /now Page"
published: "2024-05-01T20:28:09.000000Z"
updated: "2024-05-01T20:28:09.000000Z"
---

It's been a few months since I shared how I had [integrated (near) realtime weather station data](https://runtimeterror.dev/display-tempest-weather-static-site/) into my [omg.lol profile page](https://jbowdre.lol). I've since done a little bit more work to start managing that (and the related [/now](https://now.jbowdre.lol) page) [with GitOps](https://scribbles.jbowdre.lol/post/gitops-for-omg-lol). Not only has that allowed me to update my pages from my terminal, but it's also made it easier (and safer) for me to tinker with the presentation.

So today I knocked out something I'd been intended to do for ages: I set up my /now page to pull the latest album or track from my ["Now Playing" thread on MusicThread](https://musicthread.app/thread/2aVjZUocjk96LELFbV5JvJjm14v). I opted for this approach rather than direct last.fm (or other scrobbler) integration for two important reasons:

1. It was easier, and
2. I want there to still be some degree of personal curation occurring.

I want it to answer the question, "Hey, what are you listening to lately?" rather than just blindly reporting whatever happens to be queued up. As a visitor to someone's page, I'm less interested in what song is currently playing than I am in what music has caught their ear recently. So that's what I wanted to present on my page.

All that is to say, this integration was pretty straight forward and I didn't even need to mess with any messy authentication. MusicThread has a [very simple API](https://musicthread.app/api), so I quickly determine that all I needed to do was make a `GET` request against:

```
https://musicthread.app/api/v0/thread/2aVjZUocjk96LELFbV5JvJjm14v
```

And it would return the thread in JSON:

```
{
    "links": [
        {
            "artist": "Stone Sour",
            "description": "",
            "key": "2fnI6uEVJdT5kPyRho6XQhebmVO",
            "page_url": "https://musicthread.app/link/2fnI6uEVJdT5kPyRho6XQhebmVO",
            "submitted_at": "2024-04-29T22:37:22.740999Z",
            "thumbnail_url": "https://img.musicthread.app/37d8a80b52457eba701fedba13a39f4687c290da/68747470733a2f2f692e7363646e2e636f2f696d6167652f61623637363136643030303062323733623432346165623531303031366461613162633032353163",
            "title": "Through Glass",
            "type": "track"
        },
        {
            "artist": "Logic, Eminem",
            "description": "",
            "key": "2fWfoHJysUL8LlwyiIZoo6Vjmck",
            "page_url": "https://musicthread.app/link/2fWfoHJysUL8LlwyiIZoo6Vjmck",
            "submitted_at": "2024-04-24T01:25:27.31569Z",
            "thumbnail_url": "https://img.musicthread.app/ff084172da28a68d863de47e1e1481ba6a201fae/68747470733a2f2f692e7363646e2e636f2f696d6167652f61623637363136643030303062323733343163306164336533393338386162333332666662303233",
            "title": "Homicide (feat. Eminem)",
            "type": "track"
        }
    ]
}
```

I'm only interested in the newest (0th) entry, and I only need the title, artist, and page\_url. So here's the JS I hastily threw together to throw into the head element of my web/now page:

```
<script>
// retrieves latest link from a musicthread thread and displays it on the page
const musicthread = 'https://musicthread.app/api/v0/thread/2aVjZUocjk96LELFbV5JvJjm14v';
fetch(musicthread)
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(function(res){
    let nowPlaying = res.links[0];
    document.getElementById('now-playing').innerHTML = "<a href='" + nowPlaying.page_url + "'>" + nowPlaying.title + "</a> by " + nowPlaying.artist;
  });
</script>
```

And then I can just replace the list-item where I'd been manually inputting the music info (like a cave person) with something like this:

```
- <span id="now-playing">Silence</span> {headphones}
```

So that's now live on [now.jbowdre.lol](https://now.jbowdre.lol), and the source for the whole shebang is in [my GitHub](https://github.com/jbowdre/lolz). I even have a quick [musicthread.html](https://github.com/jbowdre/lolz/blob/main/musicthread.html)page I made for testing in case you want a quick peak at just this piece.

=> https://scribbles.jbowdre.lol/post/2024-05-01 📡 Originally posted on Scribbles