App Store Optimization CLI

📌 Actively maintained fork of semihcihan/App-Store-Optimization-CLI. The upstream repository became inactive; this fork carries the project forward with multi-storefront support (US/TR/DE/GB/FR/IT), ongoing bugfixes, and feature work. Full credit to Semih Cihan for the original foundation — see LICENSE.

Research ASO keywords, inspect competition, and manage results from one local-first CLI.

What Is It?

• Fast, free keyword research and visibility tracking
• Keyword scoring with popularity + difficulty + brand classification in one command
• Local ASO dashboard for reviewing keyword/app data
• Compare apps across keywords from the dashboard — pick multiple apps plus a keyword set and see a side-by-side rank matrix (including apps that don't currently track the keyword)
• Projects (workspaces) to isolate apps and research keyword pools by category (e.g. gold tracker vs halal food scanner) — switch projects from the sidebar header with zero keyword bleed between contexts
• Multi-storefront support for 6 App Store regions: 🇺🇸 US, 🇹🇷 TR, 🇩🇪 DE, 🇬🇧 GB, 🇫🇷 FR, 🇮🇹 IT — each project is scoped to one storefront, so rank/difficulty data reflects the chosen country's App Store
• MCP tool (aso_evaluate_keywords) for agent workflows and automated keyword research

ASO Dashboard

MCP

The dashboard keywords shown above were discovered and added automatically by an agent using the MCP tool.

Install

npm install -g @onlyilkr/aso-cli

The CLI command is still aso (binary name is unchanged for muscle-memory compatibility with the upstream package).

Note: requires Node.js >=18.14.1.

Migrating from aso-cli (upstream)

If you previously installed aso-cli, uninstall it first to avoid aso binary conflicts:

npm uninstall -g aso-cli
npm install -g @onlyilkr/aso-cli

Your local database (~/.aso/aso-db.sqlite) and any saved credentials are preserved — this fork is backward-compatible with upstream data.

Apple Search Ads Setup

ASO commands require Apple Search Ads setup.

Prerequisites

• App Store Connect account
• App ID of a published app you can access
• No campaign creation required
• No billing information required

Setup

1. Create/sign in: https://searchads.apple.com
   • If your country is not available during signup, select United States.
2. Open Apple Search Ads Advanced: https://searchads.apple.com/advanced
3. Click your account name in the top-left corner.
4. Under Campaign Groups, click Settings.
5. Click Link Accounts.
6. Select your App Store Connect account and save.
   • If this is your first time using Apple Search Ads, you will usually have only one campaign group.
7. Copy an App ID from your App Store URL (number after id) Example App Store URL:

   https://apps.apple.com/us/app/example-app/id123456789
   

   App ID is 123456789 in this example.
8. Run aso auth and complete Apple ID + password + 2FA in terminal

Notes:

• You may see a missing billing information warning; this can be safely ignored.
• Ensure all campaign groups are linked to a valid App Store Connect account.
• Troubleshoot App Store Connect account linking

Quick Start

# Authenticate once
aso auth

# Fetch keyword metrics
aso keywords "meditation,sleep sounds,white noise"

# Open dashboard
aso

Command Reference

Command	What it does
aso	Starts the local dashboard (default command)
aso keywords "k1,k2,k3"	Fetches keyword popularity/difficulty and prints JSON
aso keywords "k1,k2" --stdout	Machine-readable mode for automation/agents
aso auth	Reauthenticates Apple Search Ads session
aso reset-credentials	Clears saved credentials/cookies
aso --primary-app-id <id>	Sets primary App ID used for popularity requests

Supported flags

• --country <code>: currently US only
• --primary-app-id <id>: saved locally for future runs
• --min-popularity <number>: filters out low-popularity keywords before enrichment
• --max-difficulty <number>: filters out high-difficulty keywords after enrichment
• --app-id <id>: associates keywords to this local app id (default: research)
• --no-associate: skips app-keyword association writes for the current aso keywords run

Association behavior for aso keywords:

• Association writes happen only after a successful command return.
• Without filters, requested keywords are associated.
• With --min-popularity and/or --max-difficulty, only accepted items are associated.
• With --no-associate, no association write occurs.

Output Example (aso keywords "meditation")

{
  "items": [
    {
      "keyword": "meditation",
      "popularity": 45,
      "difficultyScore": 62,
      "minDifficultyScore": 38,
      "isBrandKeyword": false
    }
  ],
  "failedKeywords": [],
  "filteredOut": []
}

--stdout Contract

aso keywords "<comma-separated-keywords>" --stdout is the machine-readable contract.

• Success: exit code 0, stdout contains exactly one JSON object with:
  • items
  • failedKeywords
  • filteredOut
• Failure: exit code != 0, stdout contains exactly one JSON object with:
  • error.code (CLI_VALIDATION_ERROR or CLI_RUNTIME_ERROR)
  • error.message
  • optional error.help
• In --stdout mode, CLI logs and prompts are kept off stdout so parsers can read one JSON payload safely.

Failure example:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "CLI_RUNTIME_ERROR",
    "message": "Primary App ID is missing. Run 'aso --primary-app-id <id>' or run 'aso' in a terminal to set it, then retry this command with --stdout."
  }
}

MCP

This package also installs aso-mcp with tool: aso_evaluate_keywords.

aso_evaluate_keywords runs aso keywords ... --stdout with default filters:

• minPopularity = 6 (floor: 6)
• maxDifficulty = 70

MCP returns only accepted rows (keyword, popularity, difficulty, minDifficultyScore, isBrandKeyword).

Example MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aso": {
      "command": "aso-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Current Scope

• Supported App Store storefronts: US, TR, DE, GB, FR, IT — set per project from the dashboard (or via the --country flag in CLI)
• Apple Search Ads popularity data is available wherever your Search Ads org has storefront access; missing-access cases degrade to popularity = 0 so rank + difficulty still populate
• Need another storefront? Open an issue — adding a new country is a small config change (cli/shared/aso-storefronts.ts)

Project Docs

• Contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Website architecture: docs/website-architecture.md