sam9s
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2009
- Messages
- 5,239
- Points
- 113
# Meet Raven: My Fully Automated, Telegram-Controlled Media Server AI 
Hey everyone! I wanted to share a passion project I’ve been building over the last few months. Like many of you, I have a massive self-hosted media server stack (Jellyfin, Navidrome, Kavita, qBittorrent, etc.).
But managing it all—searching for torrents, fixing broken subtitles, hunting down high-quality FLAC audio, and moving files to the right folders—was becoming a part-time job.
I didn't just want a media server anymore. I wanted a **media assistant**. So, I built **Raven**.
---
## What is Raven?
Raven is an AI operator that lives 24/7 on my VPS. I don't use SSH or web dashboards to manage my media anymore. **I just text Raven on Telegram, and it does the work.**
It isn't a chatbot or a "wrapper" around ChatGPT that just gives me advice. It is a genuine automation engine wired directly into my tools.
I literally just text it things like:
> *"Download the movie Death Sentence (2007) and get English subs."*
> *"Grab the album 'Rumours' in FLAC from Soulseek."*
> *"Pull this YouTube track into my Hindi music folder as FLAC."*
> *"Why is my Jellyfin movies folder empty?"*
Raven reads the message, executes the backend commands, monitors the download progress, renames the files perfectly, sorts them into my Google Drive mount, and replies on Telegram when it's done.
---
## How it Works (Under the Hood)
Raven is powered by **OpenClaw**.
For those who don't know, **OpenClaw** is a brilliant, open-source AI framework that lets you build persistent AI agents that can securely execute CLI commands, run scripts, and manage your local or cloud servers. (You can check out OpenClaw and set it up for yourself here: *https://openclaw.ai/*).
Instead of interacting with dozens of different web UIs, I gave OpenClaw specific "skills" (Python scripts) to talk to my APIs:
**Movies & TV (Jackett & qBittorrent)**
Raven searches private trackers, picks the best release based on file size and seeders, sends it to qBittorrent, and categorizes it automatically (e.g., Hollywood vs. Bollywood).
**Smart Subtitles (SubDL)**
If an obscure movie doesn't have subtitles, I just ask Raven. It searches SubDL, matches the exact release hash, and drops the `.srt` file perfectly named next to the `.mkv`.
**Music (Soulseek & YouTube)**
Finding good FLAC files is usually a headache. Raven searches the Soulseek network for me. If a peer cancels the transfer or stalls out, Raven automatically detects the failure, searches for a fallback peer, and tries again until the album is safely in my Navidrome folder. It even automatically tags tracks and pulls high-quality cover art.
**Books & Comics (Kavita)**
Just text the name of a book, and Raven pulls the EPUB straight into my Kavita reader.
---
## Why I Built It This Way
The biggest problem with typical "AI automation" is that it pretends everything is fine even when things break.
I designed Raven to be brutally honest. If a YouTube download gets blocked by a bot-check, or if a Soulseek user goes offline, Raven messages me on Telegram: *"Hey, the download stalled. Trying a different peer for the remaining 3 tracks."*
It knows my exact folder paths, it knows my tools, and it acts exactly like a human librarian managing the archives.
## Build Your Own!
If you are comfortable with a Linux VPS, Docker containers, and a basic media stack, you can absolutely build this. All you need is **OpenClaw**, an OpenAI/Anthropic API key, Telegram, completely replacing your existing *arr/media stack!
Just wanted to share this to hopefully inspire some of you. The era of clicking through 5 different web UIs just to download a movie is over. Just text your server!
Let me know if you guys have any questions about how the Python scripts hook into the torrent clients or Soulseek. Happy to share how the plumbing works!
A detailed write-up is here if anyone is interested in reading it properly.
mdbin.sivaramp.com
Below is how a typical conversation with my Raven looks.
https://ibb.co/svGtwN89
Below is how the dashboard looks
Below is how a typical conversation with my Raven looks.
https://ibb.co/svGtwN89
Hey everyone! I wanted to share a passion project I’ve been building over the last few months. Like many of you, I have a massive self-hosted media server stack (Jellyfin, Navidrome, Kavita, qBittorrent, etc.).
But managing it all—searching for torrents, fixing broken subtitles, hunting down high-quality FLAC audio, and moving files to the right folders—was becoming a part-time job.
I didn't just want a media server anymore. I wanted a **media assistant**. So, I built **Raven**.
---
## What is Raven?
Raven is an AI operator that lives 24/7 on my VPS. I don't use SSH or web dashboards to manage my media anymore. **I just text Raven on Telegram, and it does the work.**
It isn't a chatbot or a "wrapper" around ChatGPT that just gives me advice. It is a genuine automation engine wired directly into my tools.
I literally just text it things like:
> *"Download the movie Death Sentence (2007) and get English subs."*
> *"Grab the album 'Rumours' in FLAC from Soulseek."*
> *"Pull this YouTube track into my Hindi music folder as FLAC."*
> *"Why is my Jellyfin movies folder empty?"*
Raven reads the message, executes the backend commands, monitors the download progress, renames the files perfectly, sorts them into my Google Drive mount, and replies on Telegram when it's done.
---
## How it Works (Under the Hood)
Raven is powered by **OpenClaw**.
For those who don't know, **OpenClaw** is a brilliant, open-source AI framework that lets you build persistent AI agents that can securely execute CLI commands, run scripts, and manage your local or cloud servers. (You can check out OpenClaw and set it up for yourself here: *https://openclaw.ai/*).
Instead of interacting with dozens of different web UIs, I gave OpenClaw specific "skills" (Python scripts) to talk to my APIs:
**Movies & TV (Jackett & qBittorrent)**Raven searches private trackers, picks the best release based on file size and seeders, sends it to qBittorrent, and categorizes it automatically (e.g., Hollywood vs. Bollywood).
**Smart Subtitles (SubDL)**If an obscure movie doesn't have subtitles, I just ask Raven. It searches SubDL, matches the exact release hash, and drops the `.srt` file perfectly named next to the `.mkv`.
**Music (Soulseek & YouTube)**Finding good FLAC files is usually a headache. Raven searches the Soulseek network for me. If a peer cancels the transfer or stalls out, Raven automatically detects the failure, searches for a fallback peer, and tries again until the album is safely in my Navidrome folder. It even automatically tags tracks and pulls high-quality cover art.
**Books & Comics (Kavita)**Just text the name of a book, and Raven pulls the EPUB straight into my Kavita reader.
---
## Why I Built It This Way
The biggest problem with typical "AI automation" is that it pretends everything is fine even when things break.
I designed Raven to be brutally honest. If a YouTube download gets blocked by a bot-check, or if a Soulseek user goes offline, Raven messages me on Telegram: *"Hey, the download stalled. Trying a different peer for the remaining 3 tracks."*
It knows my exact folder paths, it knows my tools, and it acts exactly like a human librarian managing the archives.
## Build Your Own!
If you are comfortable with a Linux VPS, Docker containers, and a basic media stack, you can absolutely build this. All you need is **OpenClaw**, an OpenAI/Anthropic API key, Telegram, completely replacing your existing *arr/media stack!
Just wanted to share this to hopefully inspire some of you. The era of clicking through 5 different web UIs just to download a movie is over. Just text your server!
Let me know if you guys have any questions about how the Python scripts hook into the torrent clients or Soulseek. Happy to share how the plumbing works!
A detailed write-up is here if anyone is interested in reading it properly.
# Raven — My Self‑Ho... - MarkdownBin
# Raven — My Self‑Hosted Media Server AI I’ve been building a self‑hosted media setup with an AI ... Share your markdown with the world
Below is how a typical conversation with my Raven looks.
https://ibb.co/svGtwN89
Below is how the dashboard looks
Below is how a typical conversation with my Raven looks.
https://ibb.co/svGtwN89
