SmartLead — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the smartlead-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 smartlead --cli-only - Verify:
smartlead-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/sales-and-crm/smartlead/cmd/smartlead-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
Use this CLI when an agent or operator needs to audit cold-email outreach in SmartLead: checking which campaigns are healthy, building follow-up lists of silent leads, deduplicating leads across campaigns before launch, or ranking sender accounts by deliverability. It is the right tool when the question spans multiple campaigns or needs week-over-week history, because those answers come from the local mirror rather than a single API call.
Unique Capabilities
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Local state that compounds
health— One-shot scorecard for every campaign — bounce rate, reply rate, silent-lead count, sender count, and a stale flag — without clicking through the dashboard.Reach for this first when an agent needs to know which campaigns are healthy before drilling into any one of them.
smartlead-pp-cli health --jsonsilent— Finds leads that were emailed but have not replied within N days — the exact set to follow up with or retire.Use this to build a follow-up list instead of paging the whole lead set and diffing timestamps by hand.
smartlead-pp-cli silent --campaign 12345 --days 7 --jsondupes— Scans the whole lead mirror for emails or domains that appear in two or more campaigns; --domain prints the full pitch ledger for one site.Run this before adding leads to a campaign to avoid double-contacting a prospect already in flight.
smartlead-pp-cli dupes --domain example.com --jsondrift— Computes week-over-week reply, open, and bounce deltas for a campaign by querying analytics one seven-day window at a time.Use this to catch a campaign decaying over time rather than judging it from a single point-in-time stat.
smartlead-pp-cli drift --campaign 12345 --weeks 4 --json
Deliverability intelligence
sender-health— Ranks every email sender account by a composite of inbox-warmup landing rate, SMTP/IMAP connection health, and sending utilization.Reach for this to find which sender accounts are dragging deliverability before they tank a campaign.
smartlead-pp-cli sender-health --jsonwarmup-gate— Checks each sender account against warmup thresholds (--min-days, --min-inbox-rate); with --strict it exits non-zero when any account fails — a scriptable launch gate.Call this in a launch script to block attaching a sender account that is not warmed up yet.
smartlead-pp-cli warmup-gate --account 6789 --json
Command Reference
campaigns — Manage campaigns
smartlead-pp-cli campaigns create— Create a new campaignsmartlead-pp-cli campaigns delete— Delete a campaignsmartlead-pp-cli campaigns get— Get a campaign by IDsmartlead-pp-cli campaigns list— Retrieves every email campaign for the authenticated SmartLead account.
client — Manage client
smartlead-pp-cli client create— Create a whitelabel clientsmartlead-pp-cli client list— List all whitelabel clients
email-accounts — Manage email accounts
smartlead-pp-cli email-accounts create— Add a new email sender accountsmartlead-pp-cli email-accounts list— List all email sender accountssmartlead-pp-cli email-accounts reconnect-failed— Trigger a reconnect of all disconnected email accountssmartlead-pp-cli email-accounts update— Update an email sender account
leads — Manage leads
smartlead-pp-cli leads add-domain-block-list— Add domains to the account-wide block listsmartlead-pp-cli leads get-by-email— Look up a lead by email addresssmartlead-pp-cli leads list-categories— List all lead categories for the accountsmartlead-pp-cli leads update— Update a lead's fields
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
smartlead-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
Morning campaign triage
smartlead-pp-cli sync && smartlead-pp-cli health --json
Refresh the mirror, then get the all-campaigns health scorecard in one structured payload.
Pre-launch dedupe check
smartlead-pp-cli dupes --domain prospect-site.com --json
See every campaign, category, and last-contact date for a domain before pitching it again.
Build a follow-up list
smartlead-pp-cli silent --campaign 12345 --days 10 --json
Pull leads emailed but silent for 10+ days to feed into a follow-up sequence.
Trim a verbose campaign payload
smartlead-pp-cli campaigns list --agent --select id,name,status
SmartLead campaign objects are large; --agent with --select narrows the response to just the fields an agent needs.
Gate a launch on sender warmup
smartlead-pp-cli warmup-gate --account 6789 --json
Returns a typed exit code so a launch script can block on a sender that is not warmed up.
Auth Setup
SmartLead authenticates with an API key passed as the api_key query parameter. Set SMARTLEAD_API_KEY in your environment (find the key under Settings -> API in the SmartLead app). No OAuth, no login flow.
Run smartlead-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:smartlead-pp-cli campaigns list --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
Explicit retries — use
--idempotentonly when an already-existing create should count as success, and--ignore-missingonly 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:
{
"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:
smartlead-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
smartlead-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
smartlead-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.smartlead-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless SMARTLEAD_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or SMARTLEAD_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.
smartlead-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
smartlead-pp-cli --profile briefing campaigns list
smartlead-pp-cli profile list --json
smartlead-pp-cli profile show briefing
smartlead-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→ showsmartlead-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 smartlead-pp-mcp -- smartlead-pp-mcp
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which smartlead-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:smartlead-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
smartlead-pp-cli <command> --help.