GL.iNet — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the gl-inet-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:
- Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to
$HOME/.local/binon macOS/Linux and%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\binon Windows:npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install gl-inet --cli-only - Verify:
gl-inet-pp-cli --version - Ensure the reported install directory is on
$PATHfor the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.
If the npx install fails before this CLI has a public-library category, install Node or use the category-specific Go fallback after publish.
If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.
Save a known-good 'home' config, adjust it at a hotel or abroad, then revert in one command with snapshot save/apply/diff. Get online at a new venue and fix the 'my foreign network is invisible' regulatory-domain problem instantly. Every command probes your exact model and firmware first, so it adapts instead of assuming — and it all runs locally over the router's own API, no GoodCloud.
When to Use This CLI
Use gl-inet for managing a GL.iNet travel router from the terminal or an agent: capturing and reverting config profiles while traveling, getting online at new venues, fixing regulatory-domain repeater problems, diagnosing 'no internet' and weak-uplink situations, and version/model-aware inspection of what a given firmware supports. It is local-only (the router's own API + SSH), with no GoodCloud dependency.
When Not to Use This CLI
Do not activate this CLI for requests that require creating, updating, deleting, publishing, commenting, upvoting, inviting, ordering, sending messages, booking, purchasing, or changing remote state. This printed CLI exposes read-only commands for inspection, export, sync, and analysis.
Unique Capabilities
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Travel config profiles
snapshot save— Capture your whole router config as a named, reusable profile.Reach for this when the user wants to bank a known-good config before changing anything on the road.
gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot save home --agentsnapshot apply— Restore a saved profile, with a safety check that it matches this device.Use to revert cleanly to a standard config without risking a mismatched-device restore.
gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot apply home --agentsnapshot diff— See exactly which settings a venue changed vs your standard config.Use to answer 'what did this hotel network change?' before reverting.
gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot diff home --agent
Travel macros
wifi region diagnose— Find out why a foreign network is invisible and fix the regulatory domain in one command.Use when repeater mode can't see a network abroad (e.g. EU 2.4GHz ch12/13 under a US regdomain).
gl-inet-pp-cli wifi region diagnose --agentvenue connect— One command to get online at a new venue: scan, region-check, join, and prep for captive portals.Use on arrival at a hotel/cafe to skip the multi-step LuCI dance.
gl-inet-pp-cli venue connect "Hotel WiFi" --agentvpn toggle— Start a VPN tunnel, arm the kill-switch, and confirm your public IP actually changed.Use to trust that the VPN is really protecting traffic, not just 'connected'.
gl-inet-pp-cli vpn toggle mullvad --agentvpn verify— Verify the VPN is up and your connection isn't leaking: egress country, DNS leaks, and STUN/UDP (WebRTC-style) leaks.Use to confirm a VPN is actually protecting all traffic (no IP/DNS/WebRTC leak) before trusting it on an untrusted network.
gl-inet-pp-cli vpn verify --expect-country US --agentwan mode— Switch the router's WAN source and verify it reconnected.Use when changing how the router gets upstream internet at a new venue.
gl-inet-pp-cli wan mode repeater --agent
Diagnostics
troubleshoot— Diagnose why the router has no internet and get the exact fix command.Use first whenever the router is up but there's no internet — most often it's not connected in repeater mode.
gl-inet-pp-cli troubleshoot --agentuplink— Diagnose a weak/slow venue WiFi uplink and get ranked ways to improve it.Use when you have internet but it's bad and you want to know whether to move, switch bands, or tether.
gl-inet-pp-cli uplink --agentdoctor— Report this router's model, firmware, OpenWrt/LuCI versions, reachable surfaces, and per-feature availability.Use to confirm what a given firmware supports before relying on a feature.
gl-inet-pp-cli doctor --agent
Power-user + config
config summary— A structured, per-subsystem report of the router's current configuration.Use to quickly understand or capture the current state of a router.
gl-inet-pp-cli config summary --agentconfig find— Find any config option anywhere across the whole router config tree.Use to locate where a setting lives when config is spread across dozens of modules.
gl-inet-pp-cli config find country --agentrpc call— Call any GL RPC module/function or any UCI option directly.Use as the power-user fallback for anything not covered by a typed command.
gl-inet-pp-cli rpc call netmode get_mode --agent
Command Reference
clients — Connected client devices
gl-inet-pp-cli clients— List connected clients (ip, mac, name, tx/rx, online)
snapshots — Named config profiles captured from the router
gl-inet-pp-cli snapshots— Saved config snapshots (local store)
system — Router system info and live status
gl-inet-pp-cli system get— Model, firmware, OpenWrt version, hardware/software capability mapsgl-inet-pp-cli system status— Live CPU, memory, clients, services, WAN/internet state
vpn — VPN tunnels (WireGuard / OpenVPN clients)
gl-inet-pp-cli vpn— Configured VPN client tunnels and their status
wifi — WiFi radios and SSIDs
gl-inet-pp-cli wifi— Radio states, channels, bands
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
gl-inet-pp-cli 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
Bank home, travel, revert
gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot save home && gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot diff home && gl-inet-pp-cli snapshot apply home
Capture a known-good profile, see what a venue changed, then revert cleanly.
Get online abroad
gl-inet-pp-cli venue connect "Hotel WiFi"
Scan, region-check, join, and prep for the captive portal in one command.
Fix an invisible foreign network
gl-inet-pp-cli wifi region diagnose --fix
Detects a network hidden by your regulatory domain and switches the region to unhide it.
Why is there no internet?
gl-inet-pp-cli troubleshoot --fix
Walks the connectivity decision tree and applies safe remedies (most often: not joined in repeater mode).
Narrow a verbose status payload for an agent
gl-inet-pp-cli system status --agent --select clients.online,wan.proto,wan.ip,memory.free
Use --select with dotted paths to return only the fields an agent needs from a large status response.
Auth Setup
Authenticates against the router's local admin password via GL's challenge/crypt/sha256 handshake (read from the live challenge, so it works across firmware versions). Config snapshots and UCI access use SSH to the router. No cloud account needed.
Run gl-inet-pp-cli 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 —
--selectkeeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:gl-inet-pp-cli clients --agent --select id,name,statusPreviewable —
--dry-runshows the request without sendingOffline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Read-only — do not use this CLI for create, update, delete, publish, comment, upvote, invite, order, send, or other mutating requests
Response envelope
Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:
{
"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.
Paths and state
Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:
Use
--home <dir>for one invocation, or setGL_INET_HOME=<dir>to relocate all four path kinds under one root.Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge:
GL_INET_CONFIG_DIR,GL_INET_DATA_DIR,GL_INET_STATE_DIR,GL_INET_CACHE_DIR.Resolution order is per-kind env var,
--home,GL_INET_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME,XDG_DATA_HOME,XDG_STATE_HOME,XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.configcontains settings likeconfig.tomland profiles.datacontainscredentials.toml,data.db, cookies, and auth sidecars.statecontains persisted queries, jobs, andteach.log.cachecontains regenerable HTTP/cache files.Stored secrets live in
credentials.tomlunder the data dir. Existing legacyconfig.tomlsecrets are read for compatibility and leaveconfig.tomlon the first auth write.Run
gl-inet-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warnto surface path and credential-location warnings.agent-contextexposes a schema v4pathsblock for agents that need the resolved dirs.For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:
{ "mcpServers": { "gl-inet": { "command": "gl-inet-pp-mcp", "env": { "GL_INET_HOME": "/srv/gl-inet" } } } }
Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use GL_INET_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing GL_INET_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.
Agent Feedback
When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:
gl-inet-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
gl-inet-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
gl-inet-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally as feedback.jsonl under the resolved data dir. They are never POSTed unless GL_INET_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or GL_INET_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.
gl-inet-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
gl-inet-pp-cli --profile briefing clients
gl-inet-pp-cli profile list --json
gl-inet-pp-cli profile show briefing
gl-inet-pp-cli 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 |
| 5 | API error (upstream issue) |
| 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) |
| 10 | Config error |
Argument Parsing
Parse $ARGUMENTS:
- Empty,
help, or--help→ showgl-inet-pp-cli --helpoutput - Starts with
install→ ends withmcp→ MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above - Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with
--agent)
MCP Server Installation
Install the MCP binary from this CLI's published public-library entry or pre-built release, then register it:
claude mcp add gl-inet-pp-mcp -- gl-inet-pp-mcp
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which gl-inet-pp-cliIf not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill). - Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
- Execute with the
--agentflag:gl-inet-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
gl-inet-pp-cli <command> --help.