spout

The missing link between your screenshot tool and the internet.

Most screenshot tools want to own your entire workflow: hotkey, capture, upload, all bundled together. spout doesn't care about any of that. It reads bytes from stdin and gives you a URL. What produces those bytes is your problem. It's a pipe segment. That's it.

Install

git clone https://github.com/Gur0v/spout
cd spout
./install.sh

To uninstall:

./uninstall.sh

Arch Linux (AUR)

paru -S spout      # stable
paru -S spout-git  # git HEAD

Configure

Run spout -g to generate the default config at ~/.config/spout/config.kdl.

x0 is the default profile. zendesk, ez, and imgur are included as examples for custom backends.

default "x0"

clipboard "wl-copy"
// clipboard "xclip" "-selection" "clipboard"
// clipboard "xsel" "--clipboard" "--input"

profile "x0" {
    url "https://x0.at"
    method "POST"
    format "multipart"
    file-field "file"
    path "."
    filename random=8 extension="png"
}

profile "zendesk" {
    url "https://support.zendesk.com/api/v2/uploads.json?filename={filename}"
    method "POST"
    format "binary"
    header "Content-Type" "application/octet-stream"
    path "upload.attachment.mapped_content_url"
    filename prefix="spout_" random=8 extension="png"
}

profile "ez" {
    url "https://api.e-z.host/files"
    method "POST"
    format "multipart"
    file-field "file"
    header "key" "YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
    path "imageUrl"
    filename random=8 extension="png"
}

profile "imgur" {
    url "https://api.imgur.com/3/upload"
    method "POST"
    format "multipart"
    file-field "image"
    header "Authorization" "Client-ID YOUR_CLIENT_ID_HERE"
    path "data.link"
}

By default, spout enforces safety limits to prevent SSRF, DNS rebinding, and accidental massive uploads (100MB cap). Clipboard interaction is restricted to standard binaries (wl-copy, xclip, xsel). PNG, JPEG, and WebP uploads have embedded metadata stripped before upload. Metadata stripping buffers stdin before upload, including in yolo mode.

Set strip-meta false inside a profile to keep metadata for that backend.

Profile options

Field	Description
url	Upload endpoint. {filename} is replaced with the generated filename.
method	POST or PUT
format	multipart or binary
file-field	Multipart field name for the file (defaults to file)
field	Extra multipart fields, repeatable
header	Extra headers for auth tokens, content types, etc. Repeatable.
path	Dot-separated path to the URL in the JSON response. Use "." for plain-text responses.
strip-meta	Set to false to skip PNG/JPEG/WebP metadata stripping for that profile
filename	prefix, random (N random hex chars), extension - all optional

Expert mode

Adding yolo true to the root of your config disables SSRF protection, certificate validation, redirect limits, upload size caps, filename validation, and the clipboard binary allowlist. Intended for non-standard environments where you control the entire stack and know exactly what you are turning off. Don't use it otherwise.

Use

# generate the default config before first use
spout -g

# pipe anything in, get a URL out
flameshot gui -r | spout

# use a specific profile
flameshot gui -r | spout zendesk

# override the file extension
spout -x mp4 < video.mp4

# override the filename entirely
spout -n my-screenshot.png < image.png

# print URL but skip clipboard copy
spout -N < image.png

URL goes to stdout. URL also goes to your clipboard unless you pass -N. That's the whole program.

Flags

Flag	Description
-g, --gen-config	Generate the default config file.
-G, --gen-config-force	Overwrite existing config with the default.
-p, --parse	Parse and validate the config file, then exit.
-n, --name NAME	Override the uploaded filename.
-N, --no-clipboard	Skip copying the URL to the clipboard.
-x, --ext EXT	Override the file extension.
-v, --version	Print the version and exit.
-h, --help	Print usage and exit.

Status

Verified on Linux (Spectacle, Flameshot, Grim, Scrot), FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. HTTP/1.1 is strictly enforced for compatibility with legacy backends.

Windows is out of scope: use ShareX. macOS is currently unsupported.

License

GPL-3.0