memectl

Production-Grade Meme Management Tool

memectl is a command-line interface for creating memes and other Imgflip artifacts. It is an early project that will grow alongside Imgflip's API, because meme operations deserve operational rigor.

memectl is built primarily to evaluate OpenSpec and spec-driven development.

Install

Download the .tar.gz archive for your operating system and architecture from the GitHub Releases page. Released archives support macOS and Linux on amd64 and arm64.

Extract the archive, then move memectl to your preferred directory on PATH. Replace the placeholders with the filename you downloaded and the directory you use for executables:

tar -xzf memectl_VERSION_OS_ARCH.tar.gz
mv memectl /path/to/bin/

Verify the installation:

memectl --version

Usage

List available Imgflip meme templates. This command does not require Imgflip credentials:

memectl get templates

Include each template's direct image URL with wide output to visually preview it:

memectl get templates --output wide

Create a named, managed captioned meme from a template. Set your Imgflip account credentials first; they are required only for creation:

export IMGFLIP_USERNAME="your-imgflip-username"
export IMGFLIP_PASSWORD="your-imgflip-password"
memectl create meme writing-memes --template 181913649 --text "Writing memes manually" --text "Using memectl"

Use --text once for each template text box, in the order Imgflip should apply them. On success, memectl stores the meme's name, template, text, and hosted URLs in ~/.meme/memes.json, then prints the hosted image URL and its Imgflip page URL. Hosted images are publicly accessible on the internet.

List the locally managed memes without contacting Imgflip:

memectl get memes
memectl get memes --output wide

Inspect one locally managed meme record without contacting Imgflip:

memectl describe meme writing-memes

Delete one or more locally managed meme records without contacting Imgflip:

memectl delete meme writing-memes old-meme

This removes only the selected local inventory metadata. The hosted Imgflip image remains unchanged.

Set MEME_STORE to use an exact alternate inventory file path. This is useful for isolated environments and tests:

MEME_STORE=/tmp/memes.json memectl get memes

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for source setup, local checks, and release snapshots.