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.
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.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mvanhorn/cli-printing-pressnpx agentmods add skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polishWrote 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.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mvanhorn/cli-printing-press/printing-press-polish)<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.
<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>- Socket pass
- Snyk pass
- NVIDIA SkillSpector warn
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]
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.
| Model | Per session | Once 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 | $0.01911 |
Grade C, and why
printing-press-polish scanned grade C with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Recursive force deletehighDestructive command
rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.
rm -rf "$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: 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; }
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.
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.
- 2d ago Changed · +31 lines scan A → C 4cef2208599a
- 3d ago Changed 56daa0bf3bef
- 5d ago Changed 5b3a589d70c8
- 15d ago Changed 6bfb2b380520
- 1mo ago Changed 59167bb1716a
- 1mo ago Changed 6906e5078243
- 1mo ago Changed 16da462af69a
- 1mo ago First seen · 1,072 lines · 125 tokens per session scan A 300ae004a138
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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