matrix.sh

matrix.sh is a bash script to send messages to a matrix chat.

Features

• Interactively log in to a server.
• Select a default chat to use.
• Send text messages.
• Optionally enable parsing of HTML tags.
• Directly pipe command output to the script and get it automatically wrapped in <pre> tags.
• Send files, optionally as audio, image or video.

Installation

• Download matrix.sh, either by using git clone or something like wget ... and put it somewhere in your path or whatever.

• Install dependencies:

  • curl
  • jq

  Something like sudo apt-get install curl jq.

• Use it to log in. See Usage.

Usage

Logging in

Use -l <homeserver>. The script will try to resolve delegation via the /.well-known/matrix/server path. If that doesn't work, you'll get an error message.

$ ./matrix.sh -l matrix.org
Username on the server (just the local part, so e.g. 'bob'): bob
bob's password:

Success. Access token saved to ~/.matrix.sh
You should now use ./matrix.sh -s to select a default room.

Selecting a default room

You can select a default room which will be used if you don't provide a room_id at runtime.

$ ./matrix.sh -s
Getting Rooms...
Joined rooms:
  !GCHxYlasvdh778dsOx:matrix.org - Me and my server
  !OEassajhhkasLULVAa:matrix.org - <Unnamed>

Rooms I'm invited to:
  !2o587thjlgjHUIUHni:matrix.org - <Unnamed>

Which room do you want to use?
Enter the room_id (the thing at the beginning of the line):
!2o587thjlgjHUIUHni:matrix.org

Saved default room to ~/.matrix.sh

Sending messages

Sending a normal text message:

$ ./matrix.sh "Hello World"

Sending a text message with markup:

$ ./matrix.sh -H "This is <strong>very important</strong>."

Piping command output:

$ echo "Hello" | ./matrix.sh

Code formatting:

You can use -P to send messages formatted as code. This will also escape HTML tags.

$ ls -l | ./matrix.sh -P

Sending files:

$ ./matrix.sh -f upload.zip

Use -a, -i, -v instead of -f to send files as audio, images or video, respectively.

Providing a room:

You can use -r to provide a room_id. This supersedes the default room.

$ ./matrix.sh -r '!OEassajhhkasLULVAa:matrix.org' "Hello World"

(Note: bash doesn't like exclamation marks in double quoted strings. So we use single quotes for the room id.)