From the Greek — a temple of Athena, and later any institution devoted to learning. A place where knowledge is gathered, catalogued, and kept.
A self-hosted book manager that bridges AudiobookShelf and Hardcover. Search for books, request audiobook and ebook formats, and have them automatically downloaded, organised, and added to your library.
- Library sync — mirrors your AudiobookShelf library and enriches every book with Hardcover metadata
- Search and request — search by title, author, or series; request audiobook or ebook formats in one tap
- Series tracking — see what you own, what is requested, and what is missing for each series
- Downloads — searches Prowlarr and sends releases to qBittorrent, SABnzbd, or Deluge
- Series pack downloads — grab a whole series torrent and map files to individual books before organising
- Auto-organise — moves completed downloads into
Author/Titledirectories with OPF metadata sidecars, ready for ABS ingestion - Authentication — local login or OIDC (Authentik, Authelia, Keycloak, etc.); admin and user roles
- Notifications — Apprise-compatible URLs (Pushover, ntfy, Slack, Gotify, and more)
- Mobile-first UI — light/dark mode, simple nav, intuitive views; works well on desktop too
| Service | Purpose | Required |
|---|---|---|
| AudiobookShelf | Media server and library source | Yes |
| Hardcover | Book metadata, series data, covers | Yes (free API key) |
| Prowlarr | Indexer aggregation | For downloads |
| qBittorrent / SABnzbd / Deluge | Download client | For downloads |
services:
athenaeum:
image: ghcr.io/bothari/athenaeum:latest
container_name: athenaeum
ports:
- "8741:8741"
volumes:
- ./data:/data
- /path/to/your/library:/output
- /path/to/downloads:/downloads
restart: unless-stoppeddocker compose up -dOpen http://localhost:8741. On first boot you will be prompted to create an admin account, then connect your services in Settings.
See volume mapping if downloads are not being detected.
- More download clients — Transmission, NZBGet, and others
- More library clients — Calibre content server support alongside AudiobookShelf
- Configuration reference
- Authentication and SSO
- Volume mapping
- Hardcover linking and manual requests
- Development
Everything lives in your /data mount:
athenaeum.db— SQLite database (WAL mode, safe to copy while running)settings.yaml— all configuration including API keys
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
Athenaeum is a human-engineered application built by a software engineer with over 20 years of professional experience. Claude Code (Claude Sonnet 4.6) served as the primary development tool — a force multiplier for implementation speed, not a replacement for engineering judgement.
The process:
- A detailed spec and architecture document was written before any code, then put through an adversarial review process: multiple AI personas (architect, implementer, skeptic, end-user, security reviewer) independently critiqued it, and their findings were compiled and addressed in a second revision before build began
- Every feature was manually tested against real services — AudiobookShelf, Hardcover, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, SABnzbd, Deluge — on a live home server setup
- All AI-generated code was reviewed before it landed; nothing was blindly accepted
The full spec, review transcripts, and amendment history are in docs/dev/ if you want to see how the sausage was made.
A note on security: I am not a professional security auditor. Athenaeum has authentication, session management, role-based access control, and was reviewed for common web vulnerabilities — but I make no formal security guarantees. Exposing it to the internet is at your own risk. That said, I run it behind a reverse proxy with SSO myself and am reasonably confident it is fine for personal use.