Lightweight dual‑provider weather script for Waybar (Open‑Meteo + wttr.in, no extra deps)

[jimishol]

I’ve built a small, dependency‑free weather script that integrates cleanly with Waybar, and I’m sharing it here in case it’s useful to others.

It’s a POSIX shell script that uses two providers:

• Open‑Meteo
• wttr.in

with strict provider separation, explicit fallback logic, and clear error signaling.

Waybar integration

• JSON output for a custom module
• Left click: toggle provider (Open‑Meteo ↔ wttr.in)
• Right click: cycle wind units (Beaufort / km/h / knots)
• Tooltip: multi‑line forecast including:
  • min/max temperature
  • feels like
  • rain probability
  • wind speed + 16‑point compass + arrows
  • sunrise / sunset

Design goals

• Zero extra installs (only curl + standard tools)
• Per‑user configuration (location, units, language, icons)
• Robust behavior (explicit sentinel values, no silent fallbacks)

Repo

https://github.com/jimishol/weather-cli-dualprovider

There’s a Waybar config example and a screenshot in the README.
Feel free to adapt or modify it for your setup.

[B2krobbery]

This is really clean and well designed, especially the zero-dependency approach and fallback logic.

I tested it locally and it works nicely with Waybar.

One small idea: maybe adding a simple cache (like 30–60 seconds) could reduce API calls and improve efficiency.

Really nice work overall.

[jimishol]

Thanks so much — I really appreciate you taking the time to test and suggest improvements, and your idea about caching is thoughtful and practical.

After considering it, I’m going to pass on adding a cache. My Waybar setup already runs the script only every 600s, and in my view the script is simply a curl-style request to the provider: how often that curl runs is the responsibility of whoever invokes it (the user in a terminal or Waybar with its configured interval). Experienced users generally avoid rapid repeated clicks, and I prefer to keep the code minimal and predictable rather than add extra logic that would bloat the script.

For clarity: right‑clicking (or any click handler that re‑executes the script) will run the provider request because Waybar executes the command you give it. That’s expected behavior and by design — the caller controls frequency. Thanks again for the suggestion and for testing; I really value the feedback.

[B2krobbery]

That makes sense — I understand your reasoning. Thanks for the detailed explanation!