CLI Printing Press Generator

CLI Printing Press Generator

Skill by ara.so — Devtools Skills collection.

CLI Printing Press generates production-ready CLIs from any API — REST, GraphQL, or browser-sniffed traffic. Each generated CLI includes SQLite-backed local storage, offline full-text search, compound insight commands, and dual interfaces (Cobra CLI + MCP server). Designed for AI agents first with typed exit codes, auto-JSON output when piped, and token-efficient --compact mode.

What It Does

The Printing Press follows a 6-phase autonomous workflow:

1. Research: Discovers official docs, competing CLIs, MCP servers, and community patterns
2. Non-Obvious Insight: Identifies the API's secret identity (what it's actually useful for)
3. Code Generation: Builds Go CLI with domain-specific SQLite tables, FTS5 indexes, sync engine
4. Verification: Runs scorecard, dogfood tests, proof-of-behavior checks, live API smoke tests
5. Polish: Auto-fixes verify failures, removes dead code, cleans descriptions
6. Publishing: Packages for library, generates PR with quality score

Key differentiators:

• Local-first: High-gravity resources get domain tables (not JSON blobs) with incremental sync
• Compound commands: Cross-resource queries (stale, health, bottleneck) impossible with stateless wrappers
• Dual output: Every API generates both <api>-pp-cli (Cobra) and <api>-pp-mcp (MCP server)
• No spec required: Point at a website, captures traffic, reverse-engineers the API
• Agent-native: Auto-JSON when piped, typed exit codes, --compact flag, --dry-run

Installation

Prerequisites

• Go 1.26.3+ (install)
• Claude Code or compatible AI agent harness
• Git (for cloning skills repo)

1. Install Binary

go install github.com/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/v4/cmd/printing-press@latest

Verify:

printing-press --version

2. Install Skills (Recommended Method)

Clone the repo to get skills and automatic updates via git pull:

git clone https://github.com/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press.git
cd cli-printing-press

3. Start Printing Session

From the cloned repo root:

# Load skills directly from this repo
claude --plugin-dir .

# Or in a new git worktree (for parallel runs)
claude --plugin-dir . -w

Core Commands

Primary Generation Command

Inside Claude Code session:

/printing-press <api-name>
/printing-press <url>
/printing-press <api-name> codex

Examples:

# Generate from API name (auto-discovers docs/specs)
/printing-press Notion

# Generate from website (browser-sniff traffic)
/printing-press https://postman.com/explore

# Use Codex for code generation (60% fewer Opus tokens)
/printing-press HubSpot codex

# Reprint existing CLI under latest machine
/printing-press-reprint notion

Polish Existing CLI

Runs diagnostics, fixes verify failures, removes dead code:

/printing-press-polish <api-name>

Example:

/printing-press-polish linear

Publish to Library

Validates, packages, creates PR:

/printing-press-publish <api-name>

Example:

/printing-press-publish superhuman

Amend from Dogfood Session

Turn session friction into PR (auto-detects target CLI):

/printing-press-amend
/printing-press-amend <api-name>

Binary CLI Usage

The printing-press binary is called by skills but can be used directly:

# Research phase
printing-press research <api-name> --output ./output

# Generate full CLI
printing-press generate notion --output ~/clis/notion-pp-cli

# Verify generated CLI
printing-press verify ~/clis/notion-pp-cli

# Score quality
printing-press scorecard ~/clis/notion-pp-cli

# Dogfood test
printing-press dogfood ~/clis/notion-pp-cli

Configuration

Output Locations

Default structure (auto-managed by skills):

~/printing-press/
├── .runstate/<scope>/runs/<run-id>/working/<api>-pp-cli/  # Active runs
├── library/<api>/                                          # Published CLIs
└── manuscripts/<api>/<run-id>/                            # Archived runs
    ├── research/
    ├── proofs/
    ├── discovery/
    └── pipeline/

<scope> derives from git checkout path (parallel worktrees don't conflict).

Override Output

printing-press generate stripe --output /custom/path/stripe-cli

Environment Variables

Generated CLIs use these patterns:

# API authentication
export NOTION_API_KEY="secret_..."
export LINEAR_API_KEY="lin_api_..."
export GITHUB_TOKEN="ghp_..."

# SQLite store location (override default)
export NOTION_PP_STORE_PATH="/custom/notion.db"

# Refresh settings for auto data-source
export LINEAR_PP_REFRESH_TTL="5m"

Generated CLI Patterns

Every generated CLI follows these conventions:

Authentication Setup

# Interactive auth setup (writes to ~/.config/<api>-pp-cli/config.yaml)
notion-pp-cli auth login

# Or set directly
export NOTION_API_KEY="secret_abc123"

Data Source Modes

# Auto mode: refresh if TTL expired (default)
linear-pp-cli issues list --data-source auto

# Force live API call
linear-pp-cli issues list --data-source live

# Local-only (offline)
linear-pp-cli issues list --data-source local

Sync and Search

# Initial sync
notion-pp-cli sync

# Incremental sync
notion-pp-cli sync --incremental

# Full-text search (FTS5)
notion-pp-cli search "authentication flow"

# Direct SQL query
notion-pp-cli sql "SELECT title FROM pages WHERE updated_at > date('now', '-7 days')"

Agent-Native Features

# Auto-JSON when piped
linear-pp-cli issues list | jq '.[] | select(.priority == "urgent")'

# Compact mode (60-80% fewer tokens)
linear-pp-cli issues list --compact

# Dry-run (safe exploration)
linear-pp-cli issues create --title "Test" --dry-run

# Typed exit codes
linear-pp-cli issues get ISSUE-123
echo $?  # 0=success, 2=not found, 3=auth, 4=validation, 5=server, 7=offline

Compound Commands

Generated CLIs include domain-specific insight commands:

# Linear example
linear-pp-cli stale --threshold 7d       # Issues blocked >7 days
linear-pp-cli health --team backend      # Team velocity metrics
linear-pp-cli bottleneck                 # Most-blocking issues

# Discord example
discord-pp-cli knowledge --channel docs  # Thread knowledge graph
discord-pp-cli stale-threads --days 30   # Unanswered >30 days

# Stripe example
stripe-pp-cli churn-signals              # Failed charges + cancellations
stripe-pp-cli cohort-health --month 2026-04

Code Examples

Using a Generated CLI in Go

package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "os/exec"
    "encoding/json"
)

// Call generated Linear CLI
func getBlockedIssues() ([]Issue, error) {
    cmd := exec.Command("linear-pp-cli", "stale", 
        "--threshold", "7d",
        "--output", "json")
    
    output, err := cmd.Output()
    if err != nil {
        return nil, fmt.Errorf("CLI error: %w", err)
    }
    
    var issues []Issue
    if err := json.Unmarshal(output, &issues); err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    
    return issues, nil
}

// Use MCP server programmatically
func callMCPServer(ctx context.Context, method string, params map[string]interface{}) error {
    // MCP servers expose stdio interface
    cmd := exec.CommandContext(ctx, "linear-pp-mcp")
    
    stdin, _ := cmd.StdinPipe()
    stdout, _ := cmd.StdoutPipe()
    
    if err := cmd.Start(); err != nil {
        return err
    }
    
    req := map[string]interface{}{
        "jsonrpc": "2.0",
        "method": method,
        "params": params,
        "id": 1,
    }
    
    json.NewEncoder(stdin).Encode(req)
    
    var resp map[string]interface{}
    json.NewDecoder(stdout).Decode(&resp)
    
    return cmd.Wait()
}

Integrating Generated CLI into Scripts

#!/bin/bash
# Deploy blocker detection script

# Sync latest data
notion-pp-cli sync --incremental

# Find stale blockers
BLOCKERS=$(notion-pp-cli sql "
    SELECT b.id, b.title, i.title as blocked_issue
    FROM issues i
    JOIN issues b ON i.blocker_id = b.id
    WHERE b.state = 'in_progress'
      AND b.updated_at < date('now', '-7 days')
" --output json)

# Send to Slack if any found
if [ "$(echo "$BLOCKERS" | jq 'length')" -gt 0 ]; then
    echo "$BLOCKERS" | jq -r '.[] | "⚠️ \(.blocked_issue) blocked by stale: \(.title)"' \
        | slack-cli send --channel "#deploy-alerts"
fi

Creating Custom Commands

Generated CLIs support plugin architecture:

// Add to cmd/custom/reconcile.go in generated CLI
package custom

import (
    "github.com/spf13/cobra"
    "github.com/mvanhorn/linear-pp-cli/internal/store"
)

func NewReconcileCmd(st *store.Store) *cobra.Command {
    cmd := &cobra.Command{
        Use:   "reconcile",
        Short: "Find issues in API but missing from local store",
        RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
            // Query local store
            localIDs := st.GetAllIssueIDs()
            
            // Query live API
            liveIDs := fetchLiveIssueIDs()
            
            // Diff
            missing := difference(liveIDs, localIDs)
            
            for _, id := range missing {
                fmt.Printf("Missing: %s\n", id)
            }
            
            return nil
        },
    }
    return cmd
}

Troubleshooting

Generation Failures

Problem: Research phase hangs or fails

# Check if API has publicly accessible docs
curl -I https://developers.notion.com

# Try explicit spec URL
/printing-press https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notion/openapi/main/spec.yaml

# Use browser-sniff mode for private APIs
/printing-press https://internal-tool.company.com

Problem: Codex mode fails repeatedly

The press auto-falls back to local generation after 3 Codex failures. Check logs:

tail -f ~/.printing-press/.runstate/<scope>/runs/<run-id>/logs/generation.log

Verification Errors

Problem: Scorecard shows low score

# Run polish to auto-fix
/printing-press-polish <api-name>

# Check specific failure
printing-press verify ~/printing-press/library/<api> --verbose

Problem: Auth tests fail

# Verify credentials work manually
export API_KEY="your_key"
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" https://api.service.com/test

# Check generated auth.go
cat ~/printing-press/library/<api>-pp-cli/internal/auth/auth.go

Runtime Issues with Generated CLIs

Problem: Sync fails with rate limit

# Use incremental sync with backoff
api-pp-cli sync --incremental --rate-limit 10/min

# Check cursor tracking
api-pp-cli sql "SELECT resource, cursor, updated_at FROM sync_cursors"

Problem: Search returns no results

# Rebuild FTS5 index
api-pp-cli sql "DELETE FROM pages_fts"
api-pp-cli sync --rebuild-index

# Verify FTS table
api-pp-cli sql "SELECT * FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name LIKE '%_fts'"

Problem: Compound command errors

# Check if required tables exist
api-pp-cli sql ".schema" | grep -A 5 "CREATE TABLE"

# Run with debug output
api-pp-cli stale --threshold 7d --log-level debug

MCP Server Issues

Problem: MCP server not responding

# Test stdio interface directly
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"ping","id":1}' | linear-pp-mcp

# Check MCP manifest
cat ~/printing-press/library/linear-pp-mcp/mcp.json

Problem: IDE can't find MCP server

Add to Claude Code config (~/.config/claude-code/mcp-servers.json):

{
  "linear": {
    "command": "/path/to/linear-pp-mcp",
    "env": {
      "LINEAR_API_KEY": "${LINEAR_API_KEY}"
    }
  }
}

Performance Optimization

Problem: Large dataset sync is slow

# Enable batch mode
api-pp-cli sync --batch-size 1000 --workers 4

# Use partial sync
api-pp-cli sync --resources "issues,comments" --since "2026-01-01"

Problem: Search queries are slow

# Analyze query plan
api-pp-cli sql "EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN SELECT * FROM pages_fts WHERE pages_fts MATCH 'search term'"

# Add covering index
api-pp-cli sql "CREATE INDEX idx_pages_updated ON pages(updated_at DESC)"

Best Practices

1. Always run polish after generation: Auto-fixes 80% of verify failures
2. Use --compact for agent calls: 60-80% fewer tokens, same data
3. Sync incrementally in production: Full sync only on init
4. Set refresh TTL based on data volatility: Real-time (1m), hourly (5m), daily (1h)
5. Use typed exit codes for error handling: Don't parse stderr
6. Leverage compound commands: They're the CLI's superpower
7. Credit sources in custom commands: Check generated README's "Sources and Inspiration"

Additional Resources

• Generated CLI Catalog
• Printing Press Library
• Cursor Integration Guide
• Non-Obvious Insights Examples