lebensmittelwarnung-cli

Website: English · Deutsch — command reference, guides and API docs

Check Germany's official product-warning portal (lebensmittelwarnung.de) from your terminal. lebensmittel is a command-line tool over the portal's official RSS feeds — the current recalls (Rückrufe) for food, cosmetics, and consumer products, narrowable by federal state and product type, as clean JSON you can pipe straight into jq.

• Current recalls — every active warning with its reason (Grund der Meldung), manufacturer, affected Bundesländer, batch/lot numbers and best-before dates.
• Filter by state and type — --state bayern, --type lebensmittel, combined or alone; both are applied server-side by the feed.
• Client-side narrowing — --since <date>, --search <term>, --limit <n>.
• No API key — the feeds are public.
• Clean JSON output — pretty by default, --compact for scripting, -o <file> to write to disk.

Want to use this as a TypeScript library, or curious how it parses the RSS feeds with zero dependencies? See DEVELOPING.md.

Install

npm i -g @maschinenlesbar.org/lebensmittelwarnung-cli

This installs the lebensmittel command. Requires Node.js 22.12+. No API key.

Check it works:

lebensmittel warnings --limit 1 | jq '.[0].title'

Quickstart

# The 5 most recent recalls, product name + reason
lebensmittel warnings --limit 5 | jq -r '.[] | "\(.title) — \(.reason // "?")"'

# Only recalls affecting Bavaria
lebensmittel warnings --state bayern | jq length

# Only food recalls since the start of the month
lebensmittel warnings --type lebensmittel --since 2026-07-01 \
  | jq -r '.[] | "\(.pubDate | split(" ")[1:4] | join(" "))\t\(.title)"'

# Search current recalls by product name
lebensmittel warnings --search schokolade | jq -r '.[].title'

Commands

Command	What it shows
warnings	Current product warnings (recalls), filterable by --state / --type / --since / --search / --limit
states	The valid --state Bundesland slugs (offline)
types	The valid --type product-type slugs (offline)

New to terms like Rückruf, Grund der Meldung or the Bundesland slugs? The Glossary decodes every one.

warnings options

Option	Meaning
--state <slug>	Only warnings for one Bundesland — server-side filter. One of the 16 slugs from lebensmittel states (e.g. bayern, nordrheinwestfalen). An unknown slug is a usage error.
--type <slug>	Only warnings for one product type — server-side filter. One of lebensmittel, kosmetischemittel, bedarfsgegenstaende, mittelzumtaetowieren, babyundkinderprodukte.
--since <YYYY-MM-DD>	Only warnings whose pubDate is on or after this date, counted in German time (Europe/Berlin), client-side. A warning whose pubDate can't be read as a date is left out, and a note on stderr says how many. pubDate is often the time of the last update, not of first publication: an old notice that was updated comes back as new (see Usage.md).
--search <term>	Only warnings whose product name (title or product) contains this text (client-side). Case, umlaut spelling (käse, kaese and kase all find "Käse"; Erdnuss finds "Erdnüsse"), ß/ss, accents and Unicode normalisation don't matter. It is still a substring match: Tahini does not find "Tahina", so search a stem (Tahin) before concluding there is no recall.
--limit <n>	Return at most n warnings, in feed order (most recent first).

--state and --type are validated against the fixed slug lists, so a typo fails at parse time (exit 2) rather than silently returning the full, unfiltered feed; a slug is trimmed ( bayern is bayern), and one with an invisible or control character (a zero-width space pasted along) is refused, showing it as \u200b. A --search term that is blank, or holds only invisible characters or combining marks (it would match every warning), or one with a control, zero-width or bidi character in it, is refused too (exit 2). Each option takes one value: the feed has no "several states" query, so a repeated option (--state bayern --state hessen) is a usage error (exit 2) too.

What a warning looks like

Each item carries typed accessors plus a generic fields map and the raw HTML:

{
  "title": "ja! Beerenmischung, tiefgefroren, 750 Gramm Beutel",
  "product": "ja! Beerenmischung, tiefgefroren, 750 Gramm Beutel",
  "link": "https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de/.../Meldung.html",
  "pubDate": "Wed, 8 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0200",
  "published": "2026-07-08T14:00:00.000Z",
  "reason": "Krankheitserreger",
  "manufacturer": "Eurogroup España Frutas y Verduras S.A.U., …",
  "affectedStates": ["Nordrhein-Westfalen", "Bayern", "…"],
  "lotNumbers": "L-26085",
  "bestBefore": "Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum: 15.03.2028",
  "packaging": "750 Gramm",
  "imageUrls": ["https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de/.../Bild.jpg?__blob=normal&v=1"],
  "images": [{ "url": "https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de/.../Bild.jpg?__blob=normal&v=1", "credit": "© Firma …" }],
  "fields": { "Bildquelle": "© Firma …", "Grund der Meldung": "Krankheitserreger", "…": "…" },
  "rawDescription": "<img …/><br/><b>Grund der Meldung:</b> …"
}

title is the product name. In September 2026 the portal served every item's <title> as an unrendered template ($esc.escapeXml(…); real names were back by 2026-10-05). When it serves one, the CLI fills title from the notice's Produktbezeichnung / -beschreibung, which is also product.

The typed fields are extracted from the feed's HTML <description>; fields is the complete label→value map (a superset, so a label this CLI does not model first-class is still there), and rawDescription keeps the original markup.

Output & scripting

Every command prints JSON to stdout; diagnostics go to stderr, so piping into jq stays clean. When a label the typed fields depend on (product, reason, manufacturer, affectedStates) is missing from every warning in the feed, a WARN record on stderr says so (a portal-side rename; the value is still in fields). Text in the feed is never changed silently: bytes that are not valid in its charset and half characters (a reference to a lone surrogate) are replaced with U+FFFD, so the output stays readable for jq, and a WARN record of lebensmittel.api says how many.

Each line on stderr is a log record: a timestamp (UTC), a level (ERROR, WARN, INFO) and a topic, the program and the area it comes from (lebensmittel.cli for usage errors, lebensmittel.api for the feed's answers and the notes on them, a malformed answer (the HTML shell, an empty body, no RSS) included, lebensmittel.http for the connection, lebensmittel.output for -o and a failed write to stdout: stdout redirected to a file and cut short, by a full disk or a file-size limit, exits 1, never 0). By default it is written log4j style; --log-format jsonl writes one JSON object per line instead. A record is always one line: a line break, a control character or a bidi control in a message (a server's text, a value you typed) is written as an escape (\n, \u001b, \u202e), so it can neither split a record nor forge another one, nor steer the terminal (a refused value you typed shows an invisible character, such as a zero-width space, as \u200b); a message longer than 4000 characters is cut and ends in … (N more characters):

2026-10-09T14:03:12.481Z WARN  [lebensmittel.http] requests to mirror.test are sent unencrypted (http:, not https:)
2026-10-09T14:03:12.700Z WARN  [lebensmittel.http] HTTP 503 from www.lebensmittelwarnung.de: retry 1 of 2 in 200 ms
2026-10-09T14:03:12.902Z INFO  [lebensmittel.output] Wrote 3808 bytes to recalls.json

lebensmittel --log-format jsonl -o recalls.json warnings 2>log.jsonl   # {"ts":"…","level":"INFO","topic":"lebensmittel.output","msg":"Wrote … bytes to recalls.json"}

# Reasons, grouped and counted (a warning can carry several, joined with ", ")
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '[.[] | (.reason // "?") | split(", ")[]] | group_by(.)[] | "\(.[0]): \(length)"'

# Recalls affecting a given Land (the same set --state hamburg returns)
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '.[] | select(.affectedStates | index("Hamburg")) | .title'

# All image URLs in the current recalls, each with its own credit (Bildquelle)
lebensmittel warnings | jq -r '.[].images[]? | "\(.url)\t\(.credit // "")"'

Use --compact for single-line JSON and -o <file> to write to a file — both are global options that work before or after the command.

Exit codes make the CLI easy to use in scripts:

Code	Meaning
0	Success (also --help / --version)
2	Bad usage / invalid argument (nothing was sent)
4	Not found (404 from the server)
6	Network / transport failure (DNS, connection, timeout, size cap)
1	Any other error — including a non-RSS response (HTML shell), an empty body, an unfiltered feed with no items, or <item>s outside the channel

Troubleshooting

• command not found: lebensmittel — the global npm bin directory isn't on your PATH. It is $(npm prefix -g)/bin; add that to your PATH.
• Exit 1 / "received an HTML page" — the feed URL returned the website's HTML shell instead of RSS (it may have moved). Check --base-url.
• Exit 1 / "GET : empty response … legacy JSON API" — the old megov.bayern.de JSON API (bundesAPI spec) is defunct and returns an empty body; this CLI uses the RSS feeds instead and does not touch it. If you see this, a proxy or a wrong --base-url returned an empty body.
• Exit 1 / "GET : the unfiltered feed … with no elements" or "Found N elements that are not a direct child of the first " — the all-Germany feed lists every active recall and is never empty, and items in a wrapper would be dropped unread; rather than answer "no recalls", the CLI fails. Try again later; if it persists, the portal changed its feed.
• A filter returned everything — it didn't: --state/--type are validated, so an unknown value exits 2. --search/--since that match nothing return [].

Global options

Given before or after the command, e.g. lebensmittel --compact warnings. Each option that takes a value takes it once: a repeat (--base-url A --base-url B) is a usage error (exit 2), not "the last one wins".

Option	Description
-V, --version	Print the version number
-h, --help	Show help for the program or a command
--compact	Print JSON on a single line instead of pretty-printed
--log-format <format>	How errors, warnings and notes are written to stderr: text (default; log4j style, 2026-10-09T14:03:12.481Z WARN [lebensmittel.http] …) or jsonl (one JSON object per line: ts, level, topic, msg). stdout is not affected
-o, --output <file>	Write output to this file instead of stdout (- = stdout; any other value starting with a dash is refused as the next option, so write a file named -x as ./-x), with an INFO record saying how many bytes went where. An existing file (a dangling link too) is refused before any request (exit 2) unless --force is given; a directory, and a file whose directory is missing or not writable, are refused either way (exit 2, before any request; a file or directory that appears during the request is refused at the write, exit 1). The file is written beside the target and renamed over it when complete, so a write cut short (a full disk) or interrupted (Ctrl-C, SIGTERM, SIGHUP: exit 130, 143, 129) leaves the old file as it was and no half-written or temporary one. A device, a FIFO or the shell's own descriptor (/dev/null, /dev/stdout, >(gzip > x.gz)) is written in place, without --force
--force	Overwrite the --output file if it already exists, keeping its mode; through a symlink, the file it points to, which is created if the link dangles (only with -o)
--base-url <url>	API base URL (default https://www.lebensmittelwarnung.de; http:/https: only, no query ? or fragment #, no surrounding whitespace; a literal % in a password is written %25). A user:password@ in it is sent as Basic auth and shown as in error messages. A plain URL to a host other than loopback (, , ) logs one record of () on stderr before the first request (naming the URL's credentials instead when it carries any, never printing them); stdout and the exit code are unchanged

Learn more

• SKILLS.md — Claude Code Agent Skills that drive this CLI.
• Usage.md — full use-case-driven cookbook.
• GLOSSARY.md — every domain term explained.
• DEVELOPING.md — TypeScript library usage, the RSS parser, architecture, testing, CI.

Data license

This CLI is a client — it accesses data it does not own or redistribute. The warnings are © the publishing Länder / the BVL and licensed separately from this tool's code. See DATA_LICENSE.md.

lebensmittelwarnung.de — the portal's content is copyright-protected. Reuse is allowed only unaltered, in full, and with the prescribed source citation (Portal www.lebensmittelwarnung.de, [Jahr]: [Titel], [URL], Stand: [Datum]); partial/excerpted use and mixing with other sources are not permitted, and once a warning is withdrawn upstream you must delete your copy. This tool provides access; it does not grant you those rights — read DATA_LICENSE.md.

License

Dual-licensed — use it under either:

• AGPL-3.0-or-later (default, free). Note the AGPL's §13 network clause: if you run a modified version as a network service, you must offer that modified source to the service's users.
• Commercial license (paid), for closed-source / proprietary or SaaS use without the AGPL's obligations.

See LICENSING.md for details, and CONTRIBUTING.md for the contribution policy (this project does not accept external code contributions). Commercial enquiries: [email protected].