# Pp Pricebuddy

> Every PriceBuddy product, store, and tag from the command line — plus a local price-history brain (deals, drops, watch Trigger phrases: `what's on sale in pricebuddy`, `price history of`, `what dropped this week`, `check my pricebuddy watch list`, `is this its lowest price ever`, `use pricebuddy`, `run pricebuddy`.

- Skill: `jez500/pp-pricebuddy` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 18 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add jez500/pp-pricebuddy`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/jez500/pp-pricebuddy/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- License: Apache-2.0
- Author: jez500 (https://skillmd.com/u/jez500)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/jez500/pp-pricebuddy

---


# PriceBuddy — Printing Press CLI

## Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the `pricebuddy` binary. **You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill.** If it is missing, install it first:

1. Install via Go (requires Go 1.26.3 or newer):
   ```bash
   go install github.com/jez500/pricebuddy-cli/cmd/pricebuddy@latest
   ```
2. Verify: `pricebuddy --version`
3. Ensure `$GOPATH/bin` (or `$HOME/go/bin`) is on `$PATH`.

Alternatively, download a pre-built binary from the [latest release](https://github.com/jez500/pricebuddy-cli/releases/latest), or build from source with `make build`.

If `--version` reports "command not found" after install, the install step did not put the binary on `$PATH`. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

Mirrors the full PriceBuddy REST API (products, stores, product-sources, tags, auth) with agent-native JSON output, then adds a local SQLite store and price-analytics commands built on the daily price history embedded in every product. Ask 'what's on sale', 'what dropped this week', or 'is this its lowest ever' in one call, offline, with zero extra API load.

## When to Use This CLI

Use pricebuddy when an agent or script needs to read or analyze a PriceBuddy instance: checking what is on sale, summarizing price drops, inspecting a product's price history, or managing tracked products, stores, sources, and tags. It is ideal for recurring price-watch automations because price analytics run against a local mirror with no extra API load.

## Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:
- Do not use this CLI to scrape retailer sites directly — PriceBuddy's own scraper does that; this CLI only reads/writes the PriceBuddy API.
- Do not use it to manage a multi-tenant or hosted PriceBuddy SaaS — it targets a single self-hosted instance via PRICEBUDDY_BASE_URL.
- Do not use it for real-time price alerts — it reflects the last scrape PriceBuddy recorded, not live retailer prices.

## Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

### Local price intelligence
- **`history`** — View a product's full daily price history as a time series with min/max/avg, current, and trend.

  _Reach for this to reason about one product's price over time instead of parsing nested price_cache yourself._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy history 1 --agent --select points.date,points.price
  ```
- **`deals`** — Surface tracked products whose current price is at or below their notify_price / notify_percent threshold.

  _Use for 'is anything I track on sale right now' without paging the API per product._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy deals --agent
  ```
- **`drops`** — Find products whose price fell over the last N days, using embedded history across the whole watch list at once.

  _Use for a time-windowed 'what fell this week' report; use deals for threshold buy-signals._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy drops --days 7 --agent
  ```
- **`watch`** — Review favourited products with current price and distance to each notify target, sorted by closeness to trigger.

  _Use to glance at your starred items and see which are closest to firing an alert._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy watch --json
  ```
- **`lowest`** — Compute the historical minimum per store and flag whether the current price matches the lowest ever seen.

  _Use to judge whether the current price is actually a good deal versus its own history._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy lowest 1
  ```
- **`since`** — Digest of price moves across all tracked products since a time window (e.g. 7d, 2w).

  _Use for a recent-activity summary; use history for one product's full curve._

  ```bash
  pricebuddy since 7d --agent
  ```

## Command Reference

**insights** — Server-computed buy/wait verdict for a product

- `pricebuddy insights <product>` — Deal-score verdict, percentile vs own history, per-store win rates, cheapest months, and notify-target progress (GET `/products/{id}?include=insights`). Numeric id or title substring. `--plain` for a human summary, `--agent` for the JSON tree, e.g. `--select insights.dealScore`.

**meta-extract** — Preview a URL without saving

- `pricebuddy meta-extract <url>` — Extract title, price, image, description and availability from a product URL without persisting anything (`--store-file` to test a scrape strategy, `--stdin` for a full JSON body). Needs the `meta-extraction:extract` token ability.

**pricebuddy-auth** — Manage pricebuddy auth

- `pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth login` — Login
- `pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth logout` — Logout

**product-sources** — Manage product sources

- `pricebuddy product-sources create` — Create Product Source
- `pricebuddy product-sources delete` — Delete Product Source
- `pricebuddy product-sources detail` — Show Product Source
- `pricebuddy product-sources pagination` — List of Product Sources
- `pricebuddy product-sources search-all` — Search all Product Sources
- `pricebuddy product-sources update` — Update Product Source

**products** — Manage products

- `pricebuddy products create` — Create Product
- `pricebuddy products delete` — Delete Product
- `pricebuddy products detail` — Show Product
- `pricebuddy products pagination` — List of Products
- `pricebuddy products update` — Update Product
- `pricebuddy products pause <id>` / `resume <id>` — Pause/resume price checks
- `pricebuddy products set-interval <id> <seconds>` — Custom check interval (`--clear` to follow the global schedule)
- `pricebuddy products notify-in-stock <id> <on|off>` — Toggle back-in-stock notifications

**stores** — Manage stores

- `pricebuddy stores create` — Create Store
- `pricebuddy stores delete` — Delete Store
- `pricebuddy stores detail` — Show Store
- `pricebuddy stores pagination` — List of Stores
- `pricebuddy stores update` — Update Store

**tags** — Manage tags

- `pricebuddy tags create` — Create Tag
- `pricebuddy tags delete` — Delete Tag
- `pricebuddy tags detail` — Show Tag
- `pricebuddy tags pagination` — List of Tags
- `pricebuddy tags update` — Update Tag


### Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

```bash
pricebuddy which "<capability in your own words>"
```

`which` resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code `0` means at least one match; exit code `2` means no confident match — fall back to `--help` or use a narrower query.

## Recipes

### What's on sale right now

```bash
pricebuddy deals --agent
```

Lists tracked products at or below their notify threshold in agent-readable JSON.

### Just the price series

```bash
pricebuddy history 1 --agent --select points.date,points.price
```

Returns only the date/price points for product 1, dropping the verbose per-store envelope.

### Weekly drop report

```bash
pricebuddy drops --days 7 --json
```

Every product whose price fell in the last seven days.

### Search retailer sources for a product

```bash
pricebuddy product-sources search-all ipad --json
```

Search the configured product sources for a query.

### Offline full-text search

```bash
pricebuddy search ipad --data-source local
```

Full-text search your synced products offline (no API call).

## Auth Setup

PriceBuddy uses a bearer token (Laravel Sanctum personal access token). Set PRICEBUDDY_API_TOKEN to a token you created in the app, or run `pricebuddy auth login` with your email/password to issue one. Point the CLI at your instance with PRICEBUDDY_BASE_URL (e.g. http://price-buddy.lndo.site/api).

Run `pricebuddy doctor` to verify setup.

## Agent Mode

Add `--agent` to any command. Expands to: `--json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes`.

- **Pipeable** — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
- **Filterable** — `--select` keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:

  ```bash
  pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth login --email user@example.com --agent --select id,name,status
  ```
- **Previewable** — `--dry-run` shows the request without sending
- **Offline-friendly** — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
- **Non-interactive** — never prompts, every input is a flag
- **Explicit retries** — use `--idempotent` only when an already-existing create should count as success, and `--ignore-missing` only when a missing delete target should count as success

### Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

```json
{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}
```

Parse `.results` for data and `.meta.source` to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable `N results (live)` summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (`--json`, `--csv`, `--compact`, `--quiet`, `--plain`, `--select`) is set — piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

## Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

```
pricebuddy feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
pricebuddy feedback --stdin < notes.txt
pricebuddy feedback list --json --limit 10
```

Entries are stored locally at `~/.local/share/pricebuddy/feedback.jsonl`. They are never POSTed unless `PRICEBUDDY_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT` is set AND either `--send` is passed or `PRICEBUDDY_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true`. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what *surprised* you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

## Output Delivery

Every command accepts `--deliver <sink>`. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

| Sink | Effect |
|------|--------|
| `stdout` | Default; write to stdout only |
| `file:<path>` | Atomically write output to `<path>` (tmp + rename) |
| `webhook:<url>` | POST the output body to the URL (`application/json` or `application/x-ndjson` when `--compact`) |

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

## Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.

```
pricebuddy profile save briefing --json
pricebuddy --profile briefing pricebuddy-auth login --email user@example.com
pricebuddy profile list --json
pricebuddy profile show briefing
pricebuddy profile delete briefing --yes
```

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. `agent-context` lists all available profiles under `available_profiles` so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

## Exit Codes

| Code | Meaning |
|------|---------|
| 0 | Success |
| 2 | Usage error (wrong arguments) |
| 3 | Resource not found |
| 4 | Authentication required |
| 5 | API error (upstream issue) |
| 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) |
| 10 | Config error |

## Argument Parsing

Parse `$ARGUMENTS`:

1. **Empty, `help`, or `--help`** → show `pricebuddy --help` output
2. **Starts with `install`** → ends with `mcp` → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
3. **Anything else** → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with `--agent`)

## MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP server:
   ```bash
   go install github.com/jez500/pricebuddy-cli/cmd/pricebuddy-mcp@latest
   ```
2. Register with Claude Code:
   ```bash
   claude mcp add pricebuddy-mcp -- pricebuddy-mcp
   ```
3. Verify: `claude mcp list`

## Direct Use

1. Check if installed: `which pricebuddy`
   If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
3. Execute with the `--agent` flag:
   ```bash
   pricebuddy <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
   ```
4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: `pricebuddy <command> --help`.