2025-07-10, 07:54 PM
Introducing Jelly Music (a Self-Hosted Alexa Skill for Jellyfin!)
Hi everyone,
A few days ago, a thought popped into my head: "Why can't I play music from Jellyfin through my Alexa?" This seemingly simple question led me down a rabbit hole.
I stumbled upon an old self-hosted tool that promised to bridge this gap, and I was genuinely excited. However, after a long and complex setup process on my home lab, my excitement turned to disappointment. The tool was abandoned and barely functional, working maybe 1% of the time. A whole day of tinkering felt wasted, and I went to bed a bit annoyed.
But then, as I was lying there, a thought hit me: "You're a nerd! You could build your own Alexa skill!"
The very next evening, I was diving into learning, coding, and testing. Fast forward a week, and I've got something running on my home lab that's (semi) reliable! That's when another idea struck me: other people might want this too.
So, I'm thrilled to introduce Jelly Music, a self-hostable Alexa skill for Jellyfin!
You can find the project here: https://github.com/Rusketh/JellyMusic
I want to be upfront: this is a huge work in progress. I'm just a hobbyist with no formal programming experience, and this project is very much in its alpha phase.
There are definitely bugs and weird issues. For example, sometimes Alexa won't automatically play the next track in the queue, and you have to tell her to. I'm well aware of these kinks, but as I said, I'm not a professional – just a guy with a dream trying to make something cool.
I'm posting this here in the hopes that some of you brilliant minds might be able to help me iron out the bugs and make this dream a more polished reality. If you're a developer or just someone who loves to tinker, please check it out, give it a try, and if you have any ideas or contributions, they would be incredibly welcome!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you like the goal of this project, even in its early stages!
Hi everyone,
A few days ago, a thought popped into my head: "Why can't I play music from Jellyfin through my Alexa?" This seemingly simple question led me down a rabbit hole.
I stumbled upon an old self-hosted tool that promised to bridge this gap, and I was genuinely excited. However, after a long and complex setup process on my home lab, my excitement turned to disappointment. The tool was abandoned and barely functional, working maybe 1% of the time. A whole day of tinkering felt wasted, and I went to bed a bit annoyed.
But then, as I was lying there, a thought hit me: "You're a nerd! You could build your own Alexa skill!"
The very next evening, I was diving into learning, coding, and testing. Fast forward a week, and I've got something running on my home lab that's (semi) reliable! That's when another idea struck me: other people might want this too.
So, I'm thrilled to introduce Jelly Music, a self-hostable Alexa skill for Jellyfin!
You can find the project here: https://github.com/Rusketh/JellyMusic
I want to be upfront: this is a huge work in progress. I'm just a hobbyist with no formal programming experience, and this project is very much in its alpha phase.
There are definitely bugs and weird issues. For example, sometimes Alexa won't automatically play the next track in the queue, and you have to tell her to. I'm well aware of these kinks, but as I said, I'm not a professional – just a guy with a dream trying to make something cool.
I'm posting this here in the hopes that some of you brilliant minds might be able to help me iron out the bugs and make this dream a more polished reality. If you're a developer or just someone who loves to tinker, please check it out, give it a try, and if you have any ideas or contributions, they would be incredibly welcome!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you like the goal of this project, even in its early stages!
