# Lgs Search > Search The Gathering Place + Atomic Empire (LGS) and TCGPlayer + Mana Pool (online) for an MTG card list, allocate to minimize total cost across at most three carts, and hand off pre-loaded headed browser windows for checkout. - Skill: `dan-blanchard/lgs-search` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 5 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dan-blanchard/lgs-search` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dan-blanchard/lgs-search/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - License: 0BSD - Author: dan-blanchard (https://skillmd.com/u/dan-blanchard) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dan-blanchard/lgs-search --- # LGS Search Source an MTG card list across the two local game stores (The Gathering Place, Atomic Empire) and the two big online catalogs (TCGPlayer, Mana Pool), allocating to minimize total cost. The user ends up checking out at most three carts: TGP, AE, and one of (TCGPlayer | Mana Pool), whichever is cheaper for the spillover. ## The Iron Rule **NEVER report a price the CLI did not return.** Every price in the summary must come from a real Playwright search/cart result. Scryfall USD is used internally as a proxy for the LGS-vs-online spill check — it does NOT appear in the report. Out-of-stock and unfindable lists must reflect actual page outcomes, not training-data guesses. ## Running the orchestrator The orchestrator is a normal long-running CLI that opens headed Chromium windows during Phase 5 / Phase 7. It is **safe to launch from a Bash subprocess**; the user closes the headed windows in the OS to advance, and the subprocess sees the close events without any terminal interaction. Do NOT reflexively ask the user to invoke with the `!` prefix — that's only needed when something reads from **stdin**, and with `--yes` skipping the initial confirmation plus already-saved logins plus clean carts, no `input()` prompts fire. Recommended invocation for an agent: ```bash uv run --directory lgs-search \ --input --output-dir --yes ``` Use `run_in_background=True` and tail the output file if you need to report progress. Only fall back to suggesting `! lgs-search ...` when you have a specific reason to expect a stdin prompt (login fallback firing on an unlogged-in store, or a cart-pollution prompt without `--clear-existing-carts`). ## Setup (First Run) ```bash uv sync --directory uv run --directory playwright install chromium # One-time login per store (saves to ~/.cache/mtg-skills/lgs-profiles//): lgs-search login --store tgp lgs-search login --store atomic_empire lgs-search login --store tcgplayer lgs-search login --store manapool ``` If you skip the explicit logins, the orchestrator will pop a headed window the first time it detects "not logged in" — slightly more disruptive but functionally equivalent. ## Workflow ### Phase 1 — Resolve input Accept either a parsed-deck JSON or a plain text list (one card per line, optional `Nx` prefix). Mainboard + sideboard are summed. Basic lands (Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, Wastes) are filtered out by default and surfaced in the summary; pass `--include-basics` to override. Snow basics (Snow-Covered Plains etc.) are NOT skipped. ### Phase 2 — LGS sweep Both LGS are queried for every card in parallel via a thread pool with per-store concurrency caps. Results are kept as the cheapest listing matching the user's preferences (condition, foil, preferred set). Failures fall through to None and that store is treated as "not in stock" for the card. ### Phase 3 — Allocate For each card: - If neither LGS has it OR the online price proxy is much cheaper (default: >20% OR >$2), the card spills to the online bucket. - Otherwise: cheapest LGS wins. If both LGS prices are within $1 or 10%, the card is consolidated to the LGS with the higher running cart total to minimize trips. - Quantity > 1: split across stores when no single store can fill the full quantity. Residual goes online. The online price proxy is the **cheapest non-foil non-digital USD across all printings** of each card (from Scryfall bulk data), not the default printing's USD. Default-printing prices often miss cheap reprints (e.g. Beast Within's default has no `usd`, but its cheap reprint is $0.50; Kessig Wolf Run's default is ~$15, cheapest reprint $0.30). Without bulk data the proxy is 0.0 — the spill check goes silent and every in-stock LGS listing wins, even when MP/TCG would be 5-30x cheaper. The orchestrator **auto-detects** `default-cards.json` on startup (searches `$MTG_SKILLS_BULK_DATA`, `$MTG_SKILLS_CACHE_DIR`, `~/.cache/mtg-skills/`, `$CWD`, `$CWD/.cache`, plus parents up two levels). When nothing is found, it prints a loud warning explaining the silent-no-spill failure mode and pointing at `download-mtgjson`. Don't pass `--bulk-data` unless you need a specific path. ### Phase 4 — Online optimize The spillover list is submitted to TCGPlayer Mass Entry and Mana Pool's `/add-deck`. Each site's optimizer runs (consolidates sellers, computes shipping). The cart with the lower **items + shipping** total is selected. Tax is computed at checkout. Both Marketplaces' bulk-submit endpoints **append to the existing cart** rather than replacing it, so the optimizer's totals reflect the WHOLE cart (pre-existing items + new submission). The adapter runs a `get_existing_cart` pre-flight at the top of `bulk_submit_and_optimize` and raises `CartNotEmptyError` when non-empty; the orchestrator catches this in `optimize_marketplace`'s per-store loop, prints a clear "[store] cart already has N items" error, and continues with whichever Marketplace still works. If you see this error, the user must clear the polluted cart before re-running. MP's UI "Clear cart" button is broken in MP itself (verified: the click fires Sentry errors and a no-op metadata-sync RPC), so the user clears MP manually in the headed handoff window. TGP's `clear_cart` works programmatically and is invoked when `--clear-existing-carts` is passed. ### Phase 5 — Confirmation gate + cart build The full markdown allocation is printed; default-N prompt asks whether to proceed. Pass `--yes` to skip the prompt; pass `--dry-run` to stop after generating the allocation without touching any cart. Before any cart is touched, every target store's cart is inspected. If any cart is non-empty, the run aborts with a clear message naming the polluted store(s); pass `--clear-existing-carts` to empty them automatically before adding. ### Phase 6 — Unfindable + relaxed retry Cards that no store can source after Phase 5 are listed. The user is prompted to retry with relaxed constraints (allow MP/HP, allow foil, drop preferred-set bias). `--retry-relaxed` automates one such retry. ### Phase 7 — Handoff For each store with a non-empty cart, a headed Chromium window is launched on the cart URL using the store's persistent profile. The user reviews and checks out manually. Pass `--no-handoff` to skip. ## Flag reference ``` lgs-search \ --input \ [--collection ] [--bulk-data ] [--condition {nm,lp,mp,hp,any}] # default: lp (worst condition allowed) [--allow-foil] [--prefer-set ] [--lgs-online-threshold-pct 20] [--lgs-online-threshold-usd 2.00] [--consolidate-threshold-pct 10] [--consolidate-threshold-usd 1.00] [--no-handoff] [--dry-run] [--retry-relaxed] [--clear-existing-carts] [--include-basics] [--yes] [--search-timeout-seconds 20] [--cart-timeout-seconds 30] [--max-retries 3] [--output-dir ] ``` ## Failure modes - **Site selectors changed.** Adapter raises `StoreSelectorError` with the failed selector and the URL where it was missed. The orchestrator surfaces the error and aborts the sweep for that store; it does NOT silently skip cards. - **Login expired.** Detected per-store via `is_logged_in`. The lazy fallback launches a headed login window mid-run; close it once signed in and the run resumes. - **Marketplace cart pollution.** `bulk_submit_and_optimize` raises `CartNotEmptyError` if the Marketplace's cart already has items (Phase 4 would mix the user's pre-existing items into the optimizer comparison). The orchestrator skips that Marketplace and continues with the other; user clears manually before re-running. - **TCGPlayer captcha.** TCG's anti-bot detects Playwright's persistent_context and blocks login (verified). The per-store-failure-tolerant `optimize_marketplace` skips TCG with a logged message and lets MP win by default. Don't waste time trying to log in to TCG headed — the captcha can't be cleared. - **MP "Clear cart" no-op.** MP's own SvelteKit handler for the Clear cart button throws (Sentry-reported) and the cart never changes. `--clear-existing-carts` falls back to a manual prompt for MP. The user clears in the headed cart window and presses Enter. - **Cart line-item caps.** Some stores cap line items per cart. If hit, the adapter partial-fills and reports a residual; the residual is logged in the sidecar and surfaced in the summary. - **HTTP 429 / rate limit.** Respected via `Retry-After` or 30s default; 3 consecutive 429s on one store skips that store with a warning. - **Cart-add failure during Phase 5.** Fatal. Fix the underlying issue and re-run from scratch — there is no resume path. The sidecar at `/lgs-cart-allocation.json` is a write-only audit record of what happened, not a checkpoint. ## Hand-back to deck-wizard / cube-wizard This skill never modifies decks. Unfindable cards are surfaced in the markdown summary — the calling skill or the user decides whether to substitute. There is no automatic "swap in a similar card" path.