printing-press-polish

printing-press-polish is a skill for Claude Code from mvanhorn/cli-printing-press. It costs 125 tokens per session (19,106 once invoked), scanned C, original, MIT.

A cleanup and verification workflow for a generated command-line program. It checks the program, fixes reported problems, and reviews code quality, documentation, and tool descriptions before publishing.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it after generating a CLI to run diagnostics, repair issues, compare results before and after, and decide whether it is ready to publish.
Why use it?
It helps find failed checks, security or static-analysis findings, dead code, and incomplete documentation before a CLI is released.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: names the AskUserQuestion tool; mentions AGENTS.md.

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is go build -o "$CLI_NAME" ./cmd/"$CLI_NAME" 2>&1.

Part of the cli-printing-press plugin — 9 skills, 1 hook shipped together

Good fit Use it after generating a CLI to run diagnostics, repair issues, compare results before and after, and decide whether it is ready to publish.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
About the project

CLI Printing Press is a tool that creates Go command-line clients, Claude Code skills, and MCP servers for APIs and websites by studying their documentation and existing integrations. It is intended for AI agents and developers who need token-efficient command-line access to services and compound queries. The catalogue entries are skills, instructions, plugins, settings, and a hook related to using the generated tools and the press.

mvanhorn/cli-printing-press · 4,849 stars · on GitHub

Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cli-printing-press, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 9 skills, 1 hook.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for printing-press-polish

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for printing-press-polish

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 125 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 19,106 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 2 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 22 Oct 2026
  • Snyk pass 22 Oct 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium MCP Rug Pull · line 761
    npx commands without a version suffix (e.g. @1.0.0) create a rug-pull risk if the upstream server is compromised and publishes a malicious update.
    Fix: Pin the version: npx @scope/[email protected]
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00125 $0.19106
Opus 5.5 $0.00050 $0.07642
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00025 $0.03821
Haiku 4.5 $0.00013 $0.01911

Measured 2d ago against content hash 4cef2208599a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

printing-press-polish scanned grade C with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Recursive force deletehighDestructive command

rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.

rm -rf "$built"

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

**show the CLI's value** (why install this over curl). Usually:
skills/printing-press-polish/SKILL.md · 1,103 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 1,103 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/printing-press-polish

Polish a generated CLI so it passes verification and is ready to publish.

The retro improves the Printing Press. Polish improves the generated CLI. This skill runs in a forked context (context: fork) so its diagnostic and fix loop doesn't pollute the caller — the diagnostic spam, fix iterations, and re-diagnose noise stay scoped to the polish session, and the caller receives a clean summary.

/printing-press-polish redfin
/printing-press-polish redfin-pp-cli
/printing-press-polish "$PRESS_LIBRARY/redfin"

When to run

After any /printing-press generation, especially when:

  • The shipcheck verdict is ship-with-gaps
  • The verify pass rate is below 80%
  • The scorecard is below 85
  • You want the CLI publish-ready in one pass

Can also be run standalone on any CLI in $PRESS_LIBRARY/.

Setup

# min-binary-version: 4.0.0

PRESS_HOME="${PRINTING_PRESS_HOME:-$HOME/printing-press}"
PRESS_LIBRARY="$PRESS_HOME/library"

_pp_check_disk_space() {
  _pp_disk_warn_kb="${PRINTING_PRESS_DISK_WARN_KB:-3145728}"
  _pp_disk_fail_kb="${PRINTING_PRESS_DISK_FAIL_KB:-524288}"
  case "$_pp_disk_warn_kb$_pp_disk_fail_kb" in
    ""|*[!0-9]*) return 0 ;;
  esac

  _pp_disk_path="$PRESS_HOME"
  while [ ! -e "$_pp_disk_path" ] && [ "$_pp_disk_path" != "/" ]; do
    _pp_disk_path="$(dirname "$_pp_disk_path")"
  done

  _pp_disk_avail_kb="$(df -Pk "$_pp_disk_path" 2>/dev/null | awk 'BEGIN {
    if ((getline header) <= 0 || (getline record) <= 0) exit
    field_count = split(record, fields)
    if (field_count >= 4) print fields[4]
  }')"
  case "$_pp_disk_avail_kb" in
    ""|*[!0-9]*) return 0 ;;
  esac

  if [ "$_pp_disk_avail_kb" -lt "$_pp_disk_fail_kb" ]; then
    echo ""
    echo "[setup-error] Critically low disk space on the Printing Press workspace volume."
    echo "PRESS_DISK_PATH=$_pp_disk_path"
    echo "PRESS_DISK_AVAIL_KB=$_pp_disk_avail_kb"
    echo "PRESS_DISK_FAIL_KB=$_pp_disk_fail_kb"
    echo "Free disk space or set PRINTING_PRESS_HOME to a volume with more room, then re-run this skill."
    echo ""
    return 1
  fi

  if [ "$_pp_disk_avail_kb" -lt "$_pp_disk_warn_kb" ]; then
    echo ""
    echo "[low-disk] Printing Press workspace volume is low on free space."
    echo "PRESS_DISK_PATH=$_pp_disk_path"
    echo "PRESS_DISK_AVAIL_KB=$_pp_disk_avail_kb"
    echo "PRESS_DISK_WARN_KB=$_pp_disk_warn_kb"
    echo "This flow may need several GiB for generated files, Go build cache, module downloads, or repository clones."
    echo ""
  fi
}
_pp_check_disk_space || { return 1 2>/dev/null || exit 1; }

# Mid-pipeline callers may pass printing_press_bin: <abs-path> in the args
# bundle. Prefer it so forked polish runs keep using the parent skill's
# preflight-selected binary instead of re-resolving through PATH.
PRINTING_PRESS_BIN="${PRINTING_PRESS_BIN:-}"
if [ -z "$PRINTING_PRESS_BIN" ] && [ -n "${ARGUMENTS:-}" ]; then
  PRINTING_PRESS_BIN="$(printf '%s\n' "$ARGUMENTS" | sed -nE 's/^[[:space:]]*printing_press_bin:[[:space:]]*(.+)$/\1/p' | head -1)"
fi
if [ -z "$PRINTING_PRESS_BIN" ]; then
  PRINTING_PRESS_BIN="$(command -v cli-printing-press 2>/dev/null || true)"
fi

if [ -z "$PRINTING_PRESS_BIN" ]; then
  echo "cli-printing-press binary not found."
  echo "Install with:  go install github.com/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/v4/cmd/cli-printing-press@latest"
  return 1 2>/dev/null || exit 1
fi
if ! command -v go >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo ""
  echo "[setup-error] Go toolchain not found."
  echo ""
  echo "This Printing Press flow runs Go-based build or validation commands."
  echo "Install Go 1.26.10 or newer from https://go.dev/dl/, then verify with:"
  echo "  go version"
  echo "Then re-run this skill."
  echo ""
  return 1 2>/dev/null || exit 1
fi
echo "PRINTING_PRESS_BIN=$PRINTING_PRESS_BIN"

_pp_semver_lt() {
  if [ -z "${PP_SEMVER_A:-}" ] || [ -z "${PP_SEMVER_B:-}" ]; then
    echo "[setup-error] semver comparison inputs are missing." >&2
    return 2
  fi
  awk -v a="${PP_SEMVER_A:-}" -v b="${PP_SEMVER_B:-}" 'BEGIN {
    split(a, x, "."); split(b, y, ".")
    for (i = 1; i <= 3; i++) {
      if ((x[i] + 0) < (y[i] + 0)) exit 0
      if ((x[i] + 0) > (y[i] + 0)) exit 1
    }
    exit 1
  }'
}

_pp_go_version_norm() {
  printf '%s\n' "${PP_GO_VERSION_INPUT:-}" | sed -nE 's/.*go([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+)(\.([0-9]+))?.*/\1.\2.\4/p' | sed -E 's/\.$/.0/'
}

_pp_check_go_currency() {
  _pp_go_installed="$(PP_GO_VERSION_INPUT="$(go env GOVERSION 2>/dev/null)" _pp_go_version_norm)"
  _pp_go_required="$(PP_GO_VERSION_INPUT="$(go version "$PRINTING_PRESS_BIN" 2>/dev/null)" _pp_go_version_norm)"
  PP_SEMVER_A="$_pp_go_installed"
  PP_SEMVER_B="$_pp_go_required"
  if [ -z "$_pp_go_installed" ] || [ -z "$_pp_go_required" ] || ! _pp_semver_lt; then
    return 0
  fi

  echo ""
  if [ "${GOTOOLCHAIN:-auto}" = "local" ]; then
    echo "[setup-error] Go $_pp_go_required or newer is required by this cli-printing-press binary (installed: $_pp_go_installed)."
    echo "GOTOOLCHAIN=local disables automatic toolchain downloads, so later Go quality gates would fail."
    echo "Install Go $_pp_go_required or newer from https://go.dev/dl/, or unset GOTOOLCHAIN."
    echo ""
    return 1
  fi

  echo "[go-toolchain-old] Go $_pp_go_required or newer is required by this cli-printing-press binary (installed: $_pp_go_installed)."
  echo "PRESS_GO_INSTALLED=$_pp_go_installed"
  echo "PRESS_GO_REQUIRED=$_pp_go_required"
  echo "Default GOTOOLCHAIN behavior may download the required toolchain during Go commands."
  echo ""
  return 0
}
_pp_check_go_currency || { return 1 2>/dev/null || exit 1; }

Read the full file on GitHub · 1,103 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago Changed · +31 lines scan A → C 4cef2208599a
  2. 3d ago Changed 56daa0bf3bef
  3. 5d ago Changed 5b3a589d70c8
  4. 15d ago Changed 6bfb2b380520
  5. 1mo ago Changed 59167bb1716a
  6. 1mo ago Changed 6906e5078243
  7. 1mo ago Changed 16da462af69a
  8. 1mo ago First seen · 1,072 lines · 125 tokens per session scan A 300ae004a138

Subscribe to this mod's changes

printing-press-polish is a skill published in the GitHub repository mvanhorn/cli-printing-press (4,849 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 125 tokens to every session and 19,106 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (recursive force delete, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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