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Wick 0.5: Media Downloads, Analytics, and Self-Serve Pro

March 25, 2026

Wick 0.5 is out. Here's what's new.

Media Downloads

New tool: wick_download. Download video and audio from Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, and 1000+ other sites. Powered by yt-dlp.

wick download "https://v.redd.it/4uofpbxa97rg1" -o ./archive
# Downloaded: Congressman Thomas Massie talks with BBC.mp4
# Size: 33.7 MB

Works as a CLI command and as an MCP tool. Your agent can download media programmatically for archival, research, or content extraction.

Auto Media Detection

When wick_fetch encounters a page with embedded video or audio, it now automatically detects and lists the media URLs in the output:

wick fetch https://reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/... --no-robots

# [page content...]
#
# ---
# Media found on this page:
# - [video] https://v.redd.it/4uofpbxa97rg1 (reddit)
#   Download: wick download "https://v.redd.it/4uofpbxa97rg1"

This means crawlers and agents automatically discover downloadable media as they browse. No separate step needed — fetch a page, see what media is there, download what you need.

One-command CEF renderer install

Wick's embedded Chromium renderer (CEF) is one command to install:

wick install cef

This pulls down the CEF binary distribution (~200MB) and builds the wick-renderer + wick-helper binaries from source against your local CEF. No accounts, no keys.

The renderer adds: JavaScript rendering, 20+ stealth patches against anti-bot fingerprinting, Cloudflare/DataDome/AWS WAF challenge clearing, and automated CAPTCHA handling. wick fetch auto-detects when CEF is needed and escalates transparently.

Editor's note: this post was written when CEF was a paid tier. As of v0.10, Wick is fully unified open source — everything described here is in the free binary.

Usage Analytics

Wick now sends lightweight, anonymous usage pings — just event type (install/fetch), version, and OS. No page content, no URLs, no PII. This helps us understand adoption and prioritize development.

Error reporting is also new: when a fetch fails (403, timeout, etc.), the domain and error type are reported so we can diagnose and fix issues in new releases. We've also set up automated CI that uses Claude to analyze error patterns and open PRs with fixes.

Everything else

Install / upgrade

# Fresh install
brew tap wickproject/wick && brew install wick && wick setup

# Upgrade
brew upgrade wick

# Check version
wick version
# wick 0.5.0 (rust)
# or: wick 0.5.0 + Pro (rust)

What came next

GitHub | Docs | Contact