mvanhorn Setlist.fm — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the setlist-fm-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 setlist-fm --cli-only - Verify:
setlist-fm-pp-cli --version - Ensure the reported install directory is on
$PATHfor the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.
If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer):
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/setlist-fm/cmd/setlist-fm-pp-cli@latest
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.
When to Use This CLI
Reach for this CLI whenever an agent or user needs to reason across many of an artist's setlists at once — predicting a show, finding an overdue song, counting how often a cover is played, comparing two tours, or building a dashboard of a user's attended history. Use the raw search/get commands for one-shot lookups; use the transcendence commands (predict, overdue, tour shape, compare, attended stats) when you need an aggregate the API cannot return in one call. The 2-RPS rate limit makes this CLI strictly faster than any live-API wrapper for repeated questions.
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.
Predictive analytics
predict— Generate a likely setlist for an upcoming show using recency-weighted per-song probability from the artist's recent tour.When an agent or fan asks 'what will they play tonight', this answers it with confidence-ranked output instead of forcing a manual scrape of the last ten setlists.
setlist-fm-pp-cli predict 'Radiohead' --last 10 --songs 22 --agentsong-stats— For one song: total plays, first/last date, longest gap, average set position, percentage of shows that included it.Answers the canonical fan question ('when was the last time they played X?') without burning 50 API calls.
setlist-fm-pp-cli song-stats 'Radiohead' 'Paranoid Android' --agentoverdue— Rank an artist's songs by shows-since-last-played to surface what is most due to return.Lets an agent predict the 'wildcard' slot of a setlist without re-fetching the artist's whole tour.
setlist-fm-pp-cli overdue 'Radiohead' --top 10 --agentsong-gap— Biggest dry spells for one song and when the comeback happened.Lets agents narrate band history without re-fetching the full setlist history.
setlist-fm-pp-cli song-gap 'Radiohead' 'Creep' --agent
Tour analytics
tour-shape— Median set length, encore frequency, song-position histogram, top openers and closers for one tour.Gives an agent a one-shot summary of how an artist is structuring a tour, replacing dozens of read calls.
setlist-fm-pp-cli tour-shape 'Radiohead' --tour 'A Moon Shaped Pool Tour' --agentcompare— Overlap percent, dropped songs, debuts, and set-position shifts between two named tours of one artist.Surfaces tour evolution in one call for review/journalism workflows.
setlist-fm-pp-cli compare 'Phoenix' --tour 'Ti Amo Tour' --tour 'Alpha Zulu Tour' --agentencore— Top encore openers, top encore closers, percent of shows that had an encore at all.Lets agents answer 'what do they always close with?' offline.
setlist-fm-pp-cli encore 'Radiohead' --agentvenue-loyalty— Top venues an artist plays at, by frequency. Detects 'home venue' patterns.Lets agents reason about artist-venue affinity without dozens of API calls.
setlist-fm-pp-cli venue-loyalty 'Phish' --agent
Discovery
covers— All cover songs an artist has played live, ranked by frequency with the original artist.Surfaces fan-discovery moments (rare covers, recurring covers) for journalism or curation.
setlist-fm-pp-cli covers 'Phoebe Bridgers' --top 20 --agentsetlist-diff— Side-by-side song diff of two setlist IDs.Lets agents answer 'what changed between these two shows' without parsing two responses by hand.
setlist-fm-pp-cli setlist-diff 53e3ab04 7be1aaa0 --agentdebut— Songs an artist has played exactly once live.Surfaces one-off oddities (one-time covers, abandoned originals) for rare-finding workflows.
setlist-fm-pp-cli debut 'Phoenix' --agent
Collector tools
attended-stats— Total shows, unique artists/songs/venues/cities, biggest streak, longest gap, decade breakdown for a user.Delivers a one-shot collector dashboard that the website does not produce.
setlist-fm-pp-cli attended-stats dave42 --agentbingo— Printable bingo card of N most-likely-to-play songs for an upcoming show.Fan-festival use case; gives a delightful tangible output the API was never going to ship.
setlist-fm-pp-cli bingo 'Radiohead' --songs 25since— Setlist updates since a given timestamp; pair with sync for delta refresh.Lets a daily-digest agent stay current without re-syncing the full history.
setlist-fm-pp-cli since 2026-05-01T00:00:00Z --artist 'Radiohead' --agentplaylist— Generate a Spotify playlist from an artist's most recent setlist (or merged last N setlists) — output as CSV, M3U, or Spotify-search URIs, or use the Spotify Web API to create the playlist directly.Turns a concert log into something an agent or user can listen to in one command — the bridge between data and ear that no wrapper builds.
setlist-fm-pp-cli playlist 'Radiohead' --last 1 --output csv > radiohead-last-show.csv
Command Reference
Artists & Setlists
setlist-fm-pp-cli artist resolve <name>— Resolve an artist name to a MusicBrainz MBIDsetlist-fm-pp-cli artist get <mbid>— Get artist details by MBIDsetlist-fm-pp-cli artist setlists <mbid>— List setlists for an artistsetlist-fm-pp-cli setlist get <id>— Get a specific setlist by IDsetlist-fm-pp-cli setlist version <versionId>— Get a setlist version by IDsetlist-fm-pp-cli setlist-diff <idA> <idB>— Side-by-side diff of two setlists
Search
setlist-fm-pp-cli search artists --name <name>— Search for artistssetlist-fm-pp-cli search venues --name <name>— Search for venuessetlist-fm-pp-cli search cities --name <name>— Search for citiessetlist-fm-pp-cli search countries— List all supported countriessetlist-fm-pp-cli search setlists --artist <name>— Search for setlists
Venues, Cities & Users
setlist-fm-pp-cli venue get <id>— Get venue detailssetlist-fm-pp-cli venue setlists <id>— List setlists at a venuesetlist-fm-pp-cli city get <geoId>— Get city details by GeoNames IDsetlist-fm-pp-cli user get <userId>— Get user detailssetlist-fm-pp-cli user attended <userId>— List setlists a user has attendedsetlist-fm-pp-cli user edited <userId>— List setlists a user has edited
Analytics (offline, from local store)
setlist-fm-pp-cli predict <artist>— Predicted setlist using recency-weighted probabilitysetlist-fm-pp-cli song-stats <artist> <song>— Total plays, first/last date, gap, position, frequencysetlist-fm-pp-cli overdue <artist>— Songs ranked by shows since last playedsetlist-fm-pp-cli song-gap <artist> <song>— Biggest gaps between plays of one songsetlist-fm-pp-cli tour-shape <artist>— Set lengths, encores, openers, closers for one toursetlist-fm-pp-cli compare <artist>— Compare two tours: overlap, dropped, added, shiftssetlist-fm-pp-cli encore <artist>— Top encore songs and encore frequencysetlist-fm-pp-cli covers <artist>— Cover songs played live, ranked by frequencysetlist-fm-pp-cli debut <artist>— Songs played exactly once livesetlist-fm-pp-cli venue-loyalty <artist>— Top venues by frequency, home venue detectionsetlist-fm-pp-cli tour-route <artist>— Chronological route of a toursetlist-fm-pp-cli bingo <artist>— Bingo card of most-likely songssetlist-fm-pp-cli playlist <artist>— Export setlist as CSV, M3U, or Spotify search URIssetlist-fm-pp-cli since <timestamp>— Setlists updated since a given timestampsetlist-fm-pp-cli attended-stats <userId>— Collector dashboard: shows, artists, songs, venues, streaks
Sync & Utilities
setlist-fm-pp-cli sync artist <name-or-mbid>— Sync all setlists for an artist into local storesetlist-fm-pp-cli sync user <userId>— Sync a user's attended setlists into local storesetlist-fm-pp-cli workflow archive— Sync all resources to local storesetlist-fm-pp-cli workflow status— Show local archive status and sync statesetlist-fm-pp-cli doctor— Check CLI health: config, auth, connectivitysetlist-fm-pp-cli auth set-token <key>— Save an API token to the config filesetlist-fm-pp-cli which <capability>— Find the command that implements a capability
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
setlist-fm-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
Predict tonight's setlist
setlist-fm-pp-cli sync artist 'Radiohead' --max-pages 5 && setlist-fm-pp-cli predict 'Radiohead' --last 10 --songs 22 --agent --select songs.name,songs.probability,songs.last_played
Sync the recent tour into the store, then output a ranked setlist prediction with only the three fields an agent needs — drops a 30 KB response to ~2 KB.
What's overdue for a comeback?
setlist-fm-pp-cli overdue 'Phish' --top 10 --agent
Lists the ten songs Phish has gone the longest without playing, ordered by show-count gap.
Compare two tours
setlist-fm-pp-cli compare 'Phoenix' --tour 'Ti Amo Tour' --tour 'Alpha Zulu Tour' --agent
Shows song overlap, dropped songs, debuts, and set-position shifts between two named tours.
Build a fan bingo card
setlist-fm-pp-cli bingo 'The National' --songs 25
Generates a printable 5×5 card of the most-likely-to-play songs for the next show.
My concert dashboard
setlist-fm-pp-cli attended-stats myUsername --agent
Returns total shows, unique artists/songs/venues, biggest streak, longest gap — the dashboard the website doesn't render.
Auth Setup
Get a free API key at https://www.setlist.fm/settings/api. The CLI looks for SETLISTFM_API_KEY in the environment and falls back to SETLIST_FM_API_KEY for compatibility with existing Python and JavaScript tooling. Run setlist-fm-pp-cli auth set-token <key> to persist it in the config file. All requests automatically throttle to 2 RPS and surface 429 responses with a backoff hint.
Run setlist-fm-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:setlist-fm-pp-cli artist get a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711 --agent --select mbid,namePreviewable —
--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 — piped/agent consumers get pure JSON on stdout.
Agent Feedback
When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:
setlist-fm-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
setlist-fm-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
setlist-fm-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.setlist-fm-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless SETLIST_FM_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or SETLIST_FM_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.
setlist-fm-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
setlist-fm-pp-cli --profile briefing artist get a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711
setlist-fm-pp-cli profile list --json
setlist-fm-pp-cli profile show briefing
setlist-fm-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 |
| 4 | Authentication required |
| 5 | API error (upstream issue) |
| 7 | Rate limited (wait and retry) |
| 10 | Config error |
Argument Parsing
Parse $ARGUMENTS:
- Empty,
help, or--help→ showsetlist-fm-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 server:
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/setlist-fm/cmd/setlist-fm-pp-mcp@latest - Register with Claude Code:
claude mcp add setlist-fm-pp-mcp -- setlist-fm-pp-mcp - Verify:
claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which setlist-fm-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:setlist-fm-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
setlist-fm-pp-cli <command> --help.