Calibre-Web Automated (formerly Calibre-Web Automator)
Making Calibre-Web your dream, all-in-one self-hosted digital library solution.
Supporting the Project ❤️
CWA is and always will be free and open source. If it makes your library life easier and you're able to support development, contributions go directly to:
- Testing hardware (ereader devices & tablets ect.)
- Development tools and infrastructure
- Coffee ☕ (lots of coffee)
Quick Access
Why does it exist? 🔓
Calibre, while a fantastic tool for its age, has several problems when containerised, including its reliance on a KasmVNC server instance for the UI, which is near impossible to use on mobile and is relatively resource-heavy if you're running a small, lower power server like I am.
For many, Calibre-Web has really swooped in to save the day, offering an alternative to a containerised Calibre instance that's resource-light and with a much more modern UI to boot.
However, when compared to full-fat Calibre, it unfortunately lacks a few core features leading many to run both services in parallel, each serving to fill in where the other lacks, resulting in an often clunky, imperfect solution.
Goal of the Project 🎯
Calibre-Web Automated aims to be an all-in-one solution, combining the modern lightweight web UI from Calibre-Web with the robust, versatile feature set of Calibre, with a slew of extra features and automations thrown in on top.
Affiliated Projects 👬
Shelfmark: Book Downloader
- An intuitive web interface for searching and requesting book downloads, designed to work seamlessly with Calibre-Web-Automated. This project streamlines the process of downloading books and preparing them for integration into your Calibre library
[!IMPORTANT]
CWA does not approve of or support piracy of copyrighted materials and is not responsible for user behaviour
Calibre-Web Companion
- Built with Flutter and using Material You, Calibre Web Companion is an unofficial companion application for Calibre Web & Calibre Web Automated that allows you to browse your book collection and download books directly on your device, providing a much more modern, mobile-friendly UX than either service can currently provide on its own
Join our Community! ❤️
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I want to say a big thanks 🙏 to all the members of this community that have taken the time to participate in the testing and development of this project and we encourage anyone who would like to to contribute in some way. Anyone of any level is welcome and every little helps!
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For anyone that wish to contribute to this project in some way, please reach out on our Discord Server and see how you can best get involved:
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Or alternatively make your own companion project, come hang out and or come get help if you're facing issues :)
🚨 Deploying on Network Shares (NFS/SMB) 🚨
- CWA now supports network-share deployments via
NETWORK_SHARE_MODE=true
- This disables SQLite WAL on
metadata.db and app.db to prevent locking issues
- Skips recursive ownership changes that often fail on NFS/SMB
- Switches ingest/metadata watchers to a polling-based watcher for reliability
- Network shares are still slower than local disks, but are now fully supported with this mode enabled
Network shares and SQLite WAL mode
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CWA optimizes SQLite concurrency by enabling Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) on local disks.
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Some network filesystems (NFS/SMB) do not fully support WAL or reliable file locking, which can cause intermittent "database is locked" errors or corruption risks.
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If you are deploying on a network share, set the following environment variable to disable WAL:
This tells CWA to avoid enabling WAL on the Calibre metadata.db and the app.db settings database. It also disables recursive ownership changes (chown) performed by init/maintenance scripts to avoid permission issues on network filesystems. Default is false (WAL enabled) for better performance on local disks.
File watching on network shares
- By default, CWA uses Linux
inotify (via inotifywait) to detect new files in the ingest folder with minimal latency and overhead.
- On network shares (NFS/SMB), filesystem events can be unreliable or unavailable. When
NETWORK_SHARE_MODE=true is set, CWA switches the ingest and metadata watcher services to a polling-based watcher that periodically scans for changes. This improves reliability on NAS/network mounts at the cost of slightly higher I/O and up to a few seconds of latency.
- On Docker Desktop (Windows/macOS), the container runs on a LinuxKit/WSL2 VM and host-mounted paths may not propagate
inotify events reliably. CWA auto-detects Docker Desktop at startup and prefers the same polling watcher for reliability.
- Advanced: You can also force polling regardless of share mode by setting
CWA_WATCH_MODE=poll.
Running behind multiple proxies (Cloudflare Tunnel, reverse proxy)
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CWA uses Werkzeug's ProxyFix middleware to properly handle X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Proto, and other proxy headers.
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By default, it trusts 1 proxy in the chain. If you have multiple proxies (e.g., Cloudflare Tunnel → nginx → CWA), set:
TRUSTED_PROXY_COUNT=2 (or the total number of proxies in your chain)
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Why this matters: Session protection validates requests based on the client's IP address. If ProxyFix doesn't trust enough proxies, it may see different IPs between requests, causing "Session protection triggered" warnings and forcing re-login.
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Troubleshooting: If you see frequent session protection warnings in logs, check your proxy chain depth and adjust this variable accordingly.
Features:
CWA supports all Stock CW Features:
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| Modern & responsive Bootstrap 3 HTML5 interface | Comprehensive user management with per-user permissions | OPDS feed for ereader apps |
| eBook metadata editing and deletion support | Metadata download from various sources (extensible via plugins) | eBook download restriction to logged-in users |
| Public user registration support | Send eBooks to E-Readers with a single click | Sync Kobo devices with your Calibre library |
| In-browser eBook reading support for multiple formats | Content hiding based on categories and Custom Column content per user | "Magic Link" login for easy access on eReaders |
| Enhanced OAuth 2.0/OIDC authentication with auto-discovery | Advanced search and filtering options | Multilingual user interface supporting 20+ languages |
Plus these CWA Specific Features on top:
Click a feature below to read about it in more detail:
Automatic Ingest Service ✨
- CWA currently supports automatic ingest of 27 different popular ebook formats
- Users can configure the services behavior to ignore and/or have certain formats automatically converted to other formats in the Admin Panel
Automatic Conversion Service 🔃
- On by default though can be toggled off in the CWA Settings page, with EPUB as the default target format
- Available target formats include: EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, KEPUB & PDF
- Upon detecting new files in the Ingest Directory, if any of the files are in formats the user has configured CWA to auto-convert to the current target format,
- The following 28 file types are currently supported:
- .acsm, .azw, .azw3, .azw4, .mobi, .cbz, .cbr, .cb7, .cbc, .chm, .djvu, .docx, .epub, .fb2, .fbz, .html, .htmlz, .lit, .lrf, .odt, .pdf, .prc, .pdb, .pml, .rb, .rtf, .snb, .tcr, .txtz
- Note: .acsm requires an additional Calibre plugin
Automatic Enforcement of Changes made to Covers & Metadata through the Calibre-Web UI! 👀📔
- In stock Calibre-Web, any changes made to a book's Cover and/or Metadata are only applied to how the book appears in the Calibre-Web UI, changing nothing in the ebook's files like you would expect
- This results in a frustrating situation for many CW users who utilise CW's Send-To-Kindle function, and are disappointed to find that the High-Quality Covers they picked out and carefully chosen Metadata they sourced are completely absent on all their other devices! UGH!
- CWA's Automatic Cover & Metadata Enforcement Feature makes it so that WHATEVER you changes you make to YOUR books, are made to the books themselves, as well as in the Web UI, making what you see, what you get.
Automated Back Up Service 🔒
- Worried what will happen if something goes wrong during one of CWA's automated functions? Don't be!
- By default, the originals all files processed by CWA are stored in
/config/processed_books though this can be toggled in the CWA Settings panel
Smart Duplicate Detection System & Management 🔍
- Hybrid SQL + fuzzy matching detects duplicates missed by traditional scans
- Post-ingest checks and scheduled incremental scans
- One-click merge, batch operations, and optional auto-resolution
- Configurable matching rules, thresholds, and format awareness
Magic Shelves 🪄📚
- Dynamic, rules-based shelves with rich filters and AND/OR logic
- Pre-built templates (Recent, Highly Rated, No Cover, Incomplete Series, etc.)
- Real-time updates with cached counts and tooltips
- Kobo sync support and optional tag-based syncing
Auto-Send to eReader 📧⚡
- Automatically email new books after ingest
- Configurable delay to allow metadata/enforcement/EPUB fixes first
- Format selection and multi-recipient sending
- Works with per-user settings and optional custom email subjects
Automatic Metadata Fetch on Ingest 🏷️🤖
- Optionally fetch and apply metadata automatically during ingest
- Provider hierarchy is respected with smart fallback
- Choose whether to overwrite existing fields or only fill missing data
- Works seamlessly with Auto-Send and EPUB Fixer workflows
Deep Stats & Analytics 📊✨
- Full analytics center with user activity, library, API usage, and time-based insights
- Export sections to CSV for offline analysis
- User-specific filtering and custom date ranges
- Interactive charts with dark-mode styling
Enhanced Send-to-eReader Modal ✉️
- Send to multiple devices at once
- Ad-hoc email addresses supported for sharing with friends, family or even temporary devices
Automatic EPUB Fixer Service 📧✅
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Ever had it where you're super excited to start reading your next book but for some reason, Amazon's Send-to-Kindle service just keeps rejecting it? Well no more!
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Originally developed by innocenat, this tool corrects the following potential issues for every EPUB processed by CWA:
- Fixes UTF-8 encoding problem by adding UTF-8 declaration if no encoding is specified
- Fixes hyperlink problem (result in Amazon rejecting the EPUB) when NCX table of content link to
<body> with ID hash.
- Detect invalid and/or missing language tag in metadata, and prompt user to select new language.
- Remove stray
<img> tags with no source field.
- Resolves several EPUB compatibility issues, such as UTF-8 encoding, hyperlink problems, invalid/missing language tags, and stray image tags.
- Repairs malformed language tags, XML declarations, and UTF-8 headers
- Cleans invalid NCX links, broken CSS/fonts, and stray image tags
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This ensures maximum comparability for each EPUB file with the Amazon Send-to-Kindle service and for those who don't use Amazon devices, has the side benefit of cleaning up your lower quality files!
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Enabled by default, with per-run backups in /config/processed_books
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Bulk processing of whole library with progress tracking available in the Admin Panel
Simple to use Multi-Format Conversion Service 🌌
- This utility gives the user the option to either keep a copy of the original of all converted files in
/config/processed_books or to trust the process and have CWA simply convert and replace those files (not recommended)
- Full usage details can be found here
Additional Metadata Providers 🗃️
- Users can now make use of isbndb.com's huge database when fetching metadata for the books in their library!
- Access is being provided via ibdb.dev thanks to a generous donation to the community by @chad3814
- Hardcover and Kobo metadata providers are supported, alongside new LitRes support
KOReader Syncing (KOSync) 📖⚡
Built-in KOReader progress sync with automatic book identification:
- Book Identification: Auto-generates KOReader-compatible partial MD5 checksums for all books
- Unified Progress: Syncs KOReader → CWA reading status → Kobo devices
- Zero Config: Checksums generated on startup and import, no manual setup
- Modern Auth: RFC 7617 HTTP Basic Auth with existing CWA accounts
- Plugin Available: Download from
/kosync endpoint on your CWA instance
Enhanced OAuth 2.0/OIDC Authentication 🔐
- Auto-Discovery: Automatic endpoint configuration via OIDC metadata URLs for seamless setup with providers like Keycloak, Authentik, Google, and Azure AD
- Manual Override: Full manual control over OAuth endpoints when auto-discovery isn't available
- Field Mapping: Configurable JWT field extraction for usernames and emails to work with any provider's token structure
- Group-Based Roles: Automatic admin role assignment based on OAuth provider groups
- Testing Tools: Built-in connection testing and validation to ensure your configuration works before going live
- Enterprise Ready: Support for custom scopes, multiple authentication methods, and comprehensive troubleshooting
- 📖 Full OAuth Configuration Guide for detailed setup instructions
Automatic Hardcover ID Fetch 💜🤖
- Background task auto-populates missing Hardcover IDs
- Configurable scheduling with progress tracking in Tasks
- Graceful handling of invalid tokens
Library Auto-Detect 📚🕵️
- Made to MASSIVELY simplify the setup process for both new and existing users alike
- New Users without existing Libraries: 🆕
- No library? No problem!
- New users without existing Calibre Libraries no longer need to copy and paste
metadata.db files and point to their location in the Web UI, CWA will now automatically detect the lack of Library in your given bind and automatically create a new one for you! It will even automatically register it with the Web UI so you can really hit the ground running
- New or Existing Users with Existing Libraries:
- Simply bind a directory containing your Calibre Library (search is done recursively so it doesn't matter how deep in the directory it is) and CWA will now automatically find it and mount it to the Web UI
- Should you bind a directory with more than 1 Calibre Library in it, CWA will intelligently compare the disk sizes of all discovered libraries and mount the largest one
- CWA supports only one library per instance though support for multiple libraries is being investigated for future releases
- In the meantime, users with multiple libraries who don't want to consolidate them are advised to run multiple, parallel instances
Internal Update Notification System 🛎️
- Users will now be automatically notified of the availability of new updates from within the Web UI
- Automatically triggered by a difference between the version number of the most recent GitHub release and the version installed
- Set to only show once per calendar day until updated as to not be annoying
- Visible to Admin users only
Manual Library Refresh ♻️
- Ever had books get stuck in the ingest folder after an unexpected power-cut ect.? Well say goodbye to having to manually copy the books to be ingested back in and out of the ingest folder, simply press the
Refresh Library button on the navbar of the Web UI and anything still sitting in the ingest folder will be automatically ingested!
Auto-Compression of Backed Up Files 🤐
- Just before midnight each day, the CWA-Auto-Zipper service will automatically zip together all files processed that day.
- Minimises disk space usage and helps keep back up files as organised as possible
- Enabled by default but can be disabled in the CWA Settings page in the Admin panel
Batch Editing & Deletion! 🗂️🗄️
- Say goodbye to clicking that edit button again, and again, and again just to remove or edit a single series!
- To use, simply navigate to the
Books Listpage on the left hand side of the Web UI, select the books you wish to edit/ delete and use the buttons either above the table or within the headers to do whatever you need!
- Courtesy of @jmarmstrong1207
Features Currently Under Active Development and on our Roadmap 🏗️🛣️
High Priority 🚨
- New Svelte-based frontend for a modern, faster UI
- New web reader (successor to epub.js) with better performance and features
- More robust, cross-device progress syncing (single source of truth)
- Full Text Search across the library
- Support for Calibre plugins (e.g., DeDRM)
- Split Libraries (metadata and books on separate paths)
- Integration with the Friendliest & Warmest Place on the Internet 🐭🧀
Lower Priority 🌱
- Notification system integrations (Telegram, Gotify, ntfy)
Please suggest any ideas or wishes you might have! we're open to anything!
How To Install 📖
Quick Install 🚀
- Download the Docker Compose template file using the command below:
curl -OL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crocodilestick/calibre-web-automated/main/docker-compose.yml
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Move the compose file to an empty folder (e.g. ~/docker/calibre-web-automated/docker-compose.yml). This will be used to store the server data and library
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Edit the compose file using the comments to help, filling in your Timezone (optional) and desired binds
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Navigate to where you downloaded the Compose file using cd and run:
docker compose up -d
And that's you off to the races! 🥳 HOWEVER to avoid potential problems and ensure maximum functionality, we recommend carrying out these Post-Install Tasks Here.
Using Docker Compose 🐋⭐(Recommended)
1. Setup the container using the Docker Compose template below: 🐋📜
---
services:
calibre-web-automated:
image: crocodilestick/calibre-web-automated:latest
container_name: calibre-web-automated
environment:
# Only change these if you know what you're doing
- PUID=1000
- PGID=1000
# Edit to match your current timezone e.g. Europe/London, America/New_York - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
- TZ=Europe/London
# Hardcover API Key required for Hardcover as a Metadata Provider, get one here: https://docs.hardcover.app/api/getting-started/
- HARDCOVER_TOKEN=your_hardcover_api_key_here
# If your library is on a network share (e.g., NFS/SMB), disable WAL to reduce locking issues
# Accepts: true/false (default: false)
- NETWORK_SHARE_MODE=false
# Override the default port (8083) for the web server.
# Accepts any valid port number.
- CWA_PORT_OVERRIDE=8083
volumes:
# CW users migrating should stop their existing CW instance, make a copy of the config folder, and bind that here to carry over all of their user settings ect.
- /path/to/config/folder:/config
# This is an ingest dir, NOT a library one. Anything added here will be automatically added to your library according to the settings you have configured in CWA Settings page. All files placed here are REMOVED AFTER PROCESSING
- /path/to/the/folder/you/want/to/use/for/book/ingest:/cwa-book-ingest
# If you don't have an existing library, CWA will automatically create one at the bind provided here
- /path/to/your/calibre/library:/calibre-library
# If you use calibre plugins, you can bind your plugins folder here to have CWA attempt to add them to its workflow (WIP)
# If you are starting with a fresh install, you also need to copy customize.py.json to the Calibre config volume above, in /path/to/config/folder/.config/calibre/customize.py.json, see the note below for more info
- /path/to/your/calibre/plugins/folder:/config/.config/calibre/plugins
ports:
# Change the first number to change the port you want to access the Web UI, not the second
- 8083:8083
# If you set CWA_PORT_OVERRIDE to a port below 1024, you may need to uncomment the following line:
# cap_add:
# - NET_BIND_SERVICE
restart: unless-stopped
Explanation of the Container Bindings:
Please make sure all 3 of the main volume bindings are separate directories, errors can occur when binds are made within other binds.
/config - This is used to store logs and other miscellaneous files that keep CWA running
- New Users - Use any empty folder (if you run into any issues, make sure the ownership of said folder isn't
root:root in your main os)
- Existing/ CW Users - Those with existing Calibre-Web setups, map this to your existing
/config directory containing app.db to ensure settings and users are pulled in
/cwa-book-ingest - ATTENTION ⚠️ - All files within this folder will be DELETED after being processed. This folder should only be used to dump new books into for import and automatic conversion/calibre-library - This should be bound to your Calibre library folder where the metadata.db & book(s) files reside.
- New Users - Use any empty folder (if you run into any issues, make sure the ownership of said folder isn't
root:root in your main os)
- Existing/ CW Users - If there are multiple libraries in the mounted directory, CWA will automatically find and mount the largest one - check the logs for more details on which
metadata.db was utilised
/config/.config/calibre/plugins - This should be bound to a directory containing a copy of your existing Calibre plugins. Configuration will be retained. (There is currently no way to configure plugins via CWA.)
- In order for plugins to be registered and work, you must also copy the
customize.py.json file from the Calibre plugins' parent directory to the correct config folder above, e.g. /path/to/config/folder/.config/calibre/customize.py.json. See the section below if you don't know where to find this file.
/app/calibre-web-automated/gmail.json (Optional) - This is used to setup Calibre-Web and/or CWA with your gmail account for sending books via email. Follow the guide here if this is something you're interested in but be warned it can be a very fiddly process, I would personally recommend a simple SMTP Server
Where can I find customize.py.json:
- On macOS, this file is typically found at
~/Library/Preferences/calibre/customize.py.json.
- On Linux, it is usually located at
~/.config/calibre/customize.py.json.
- On Windows, it is usually located at
%APPDATA%\calibre\customize.py.json (typically C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Roaming\calibre\customize.py.json). Older installations might have it in C:\Program Files\Calibre\customize.py.json or C:\Program Files\Calibre2\customize.py.json.
Note: If you can't find this file, it means you haven't configured any Calibre plugins yet. You can skip the plugins volume binding if you don't use Calibre plugins.
And just like that, Calibre-Web Automated should be up and running! HOWEVER to avoid potential problems and ensure maximum functionality,we recommend carrying out these Post-Install Tasks Here.
Users migrating from stock Calibre-Web
- CWA has been designed to make switching over as easy as possible. To migrate your CW instance to CWA, simply:
- Stop your instance of CW if it's still running
- Whatever your
/books bind was in Calibre-Web, should be your /calibre-library bind for CWA
- Mount the same
/config folder in your Docker Compose that you were using for CW (or a copy of it to be extra safe)
- Mount the same folder containing your Calibre Library (the Docker Compose for the Linuxserver image of Calibre Web has this as
/books by default)
- And then you're done! All of your users, settings ect. should be automatically carried over into your new CWA instance! Enjoy!
- If you run into an issue where the Web UI won't load, trying using the same port as you did for CW and then reconfiguring if you want to once you've got everything set up
Post-Install Tasks:
Calibre-Web Quick Start Guide
- Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8083 or http://localhost:8083/opds for the OPDS catalog
- Log in with the default admin credentials (below)
- Configure your Calibre-Web Automated instance via the Admin Page
- If you need help with any of the settings, consult the CWA Wiki here
- Make sure
Enable Uploads is enabled in Settings -> Basic Configuration -> Feature Configuration
- Configure CWA to behave as you would like it to in the CWA Settings panel
- Here you can turn certain features on and off, set your Target Format, which file formats should be ignored and which should be auto-converted ect.
- Drop a book into your ingest folder to check everything is working and enjoy!
Default Admin Login:
Username: admin
Password: admin123
Usage 🔧
Adding Books to Your Library
- Simply move your newly downloaded or existing eBook files to the ingest folder which is
/cwa-book-ingest
- Anything you place in this folder will be automatically analysed, converted if necessary and then imported into your Calibre-Web library if not in a format you have told CWA to ignore in the CWA Settings Panel
- ⚠️ ATTENTION ⚠️
- Downloading files directly into
/cwa-book-ingest is not supported. It can cause duplicate imports and potentially a corrupt database. It is recommended to first download the books completely, then transfer them to /cwa-book-ingest to avoid any issues
- Be sure that the books you are transferring to
/cwa-book-ingest are owned by your user rather than root. Otherwise, permission errors may occur and may result in incomplete importing.
- In the event you're expecting a book to be ingested and it hasn't been, use the "Library Refresh" button on the Upper Navbar to manually trigger the ingest process
KOReader Syncing (KOSync) 📖⚡
CWA now includes built-in KOReader syncing functionality, allowing you to sync your reading progress across devices using KOReader. This feature provides a modern, secure alternative to traditional KOReader sync servers. Navigate to http://your-cwa-instance:8083/kosync in your browser where you'll find download links and installation instructions for the CWA KOReader plugin.
Local Development Setup
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Build the image
Edit and run build.sh to build a local Docker image of Calibre-Web-Automated. See the script itself for usage details.
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Edit docker-compose.yml.dev
Update at minimum:
image: → your image tag from step 1volumes mounts → paths for config, ingest, library, plugins
To have the app refresh dynamically in response to code changes, see comments in the docker-compose.yml.dev** for details and examples on "live-edit" mounts.
- Start the service
$ docker compose -f docker-compose.yml.dev up -d
- Log in & configure
Further Development 🏗️
- CWA is really lucky to have a very passionate and active community of people that really help shape CWA into what it is today
- If you have any ideas or want to contribute to the project, you're more than welcome to! We accept anyone regardless of skill level of expertise!
- If you've got a good idea or want to simply suggest improvements, simply get in touch with us on the Discord Server here!
Supporting the Project ❤️
CWA is and always will be free and open source. If it makes your library life easier and you're able to support development, contributions go directly to:
- Testing hardware (ereader devices & tablets ect.)
- Development tools and infrastructure
- Coffee ☕ (lots of coffee)
