Craigslist — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the craigslist-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

1. Install via the Printing Press installer:

   npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press install craigslist --cli-only
   

2. Verify: craigslist-pp-cli --version
3. Ensure $GOPATH/bin (or $HOME/go/bin) is on $PATH.

If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.23+):

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/commerce/craigslist/cmd/craigslist-pp-cli@latest

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the install step did not put the binary on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

When to Use This CLI

Use craigslist-pp-cli when you need scriptable, local-first access to Craigslist listings — searching with filters Craigslist's own UI doesn't support (NOT-keyword), watching saved searches across multiple cities and getting alerted only on true new listings, doing price-drift or repost detection on housing, and triaging suspect rentals against cross-city duplicate signals. Best for read-heavy workflows: watching, exporting, comparing, scoring. Posting and account management are out of scope.

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.

Compounding watch surface

• watch run — Periodic poll for a saved search that emits NEW, PRICE-DROP, and SEED events instead of any-listing-I-haven't-seen — so true new listings stand out from edits and reposts. Cross-city repost detection lives in the separate reposts command; cross-city dup detection lives in dupe-cluster.

  Pick this over a generic search call when an agent is alerting a user — only true-new listings are worth pinging on, and the typed diff event tells the agent how to phrase the alert.

  craigslist-pp-cli watch save apartments --query 1BR --negate furnished,sublet --sites sfbay --category apa --max-price 2500 && craigslist-pp-cli watch run apartments --seed-only && craigslist-pp-cli watch run apartments --json
  

• watch tail — Long-running tail that prints one JSON event per new diff result so an agent or shell pipeline can react in real time. Emits NEW and PRICE-DROP events.

  When you want a continuous stream of new-listing events to pipe into a Slack/email sender, jq filter, or downstream agent loop.

  craigslist-pp-cli watch tail apartments --interval 5m --json
  

Local snapshot history

• drift — Show the price timeline for a single listing across every snapshot we've captured.

  Agents negotiating on behalf of a buyer can quote concrete price-drop history — "this listing was $50, now $35, posted 14 days ago."

  craigslist-pp-cli drift 7915891289 --json
  

• dupe-cluster — Find listings whose body fingerprint and image hash match across cities. Surfaces cross-city scams and aggregator reposts.

  Use before driving across town to view a rental — a cluster of 6+ cities for one apartment is almost always a scam.

  craigslist-pp-cli dupe-cluster --category apa --min-cluster-size 3 --json
  

• reposts — Find listings that have been reposted N or more times in the last X days, by body fingerprint clustering.

  Reposts signal motivated sellers (negotiation leverage) or spam flooders (skip). Telling them apart is the value.

  craigslist-pp-cli reposts 'eames lounge' --min-reposts 3 --window 30d --json
  

• cities heat — Across cities, count fresh listings per category over a window. Surfaces which markets are hot for what.

  When an agent is hunting cross-city for a specific item, knowing which 3 cities have the most fresh activity tells it where to look first.

  craigslist-pp-cli cities heat --category sss --since 24h --top 20 --json
  

Triage and scoring

• scam-score — Rule-based 0-100 score for a listing using brand-new-account, below-median-price, wire-transfer keywords, and cross-city duplicate signals.

  Agents triaging "is this listing legit" questions get an actionable number plus the per-rule contributions, instead of a vibes-based answer.

  craigslist-pp-cli scam-score 7915891289 --json
  

• median — p25/p50/p75 of prices for a query, optionally over a time window or split by city.

  When an agent needs a fair-price benchmark before suggesting an offer, or when a reseller is sizing up a market.

  craigslist-pp-cli median 'iphone 15' --category mob --since 30d --by-city --json
  

Search beyond CL

• search --negate — Search with NOT-keyword filtering that Craigslist's own search doesn't support natively.

  Apartment-hunting and job-search personas live and die by exclusion terms; this is the difference between scanning 50 results and scanning 5.

  craigslist-pp-cli search '1BR' --category apa --site sfbay --negate furnished,sublet,studio --json
  

• since — Ad-hoc "what's new in this category in this city since X duration ago" without setting up a saved search.

  The first command an agent should run for "what hit while I was sleeping" — no per-watch setup, no state, just a window.

  craigslist-pp-cli since 24h --site sfbay --category sss --query ipad --json
  

Command Reference

The full command tree is discoverable via craigslist-pp-cli --help and recursively via craigslist-pp-cli <command> --help. Headline groups:

• Reference taxonomy: categories list, areas list, catalog refresh
• Search & fetch: search, postings, listing get|get-by-pid|images, filters show
• Local store population: cl-sync
• Saved-search watches: watch save|list|show|delete|run|tail
• Snapshot analytics: drift, dupe-cluster, reposts, median, cities heat, since, geo within|bbox
• Triage: scam-score
• Local-state CRUD: favorite add|list|remove
• Framework helpers: doctor, version, which, agent-context, analytics, export, import, feedback, profile, tail, sync, workflow

Freshness Contract

This printed CLI owns bounded freshness only for registered store-backed read command paths. In --data-source auto mode, those paths check sync_state and may run a bounded refresh before reading local data. --data-source local never refreshes. --data-source live reads the API and does not mutate the local store. Set CRAIGSLIST_NO_AUTO_REFRESH=1 to skip the freshness hook without changing source selection.

Covered paths:

• craigslist-pp-cli postings

When JSON output uses the generated provenance envelope, freshness metadata appears at meta.freshness. Treat it as current-cache freshness for the covered command path, not a guarantee of complete historical backfill or API-specific enrichment.

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

craigslist-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

Hunt one item across the western US

craigslist-pp-cli search 'eames lounge chair' --sites sfbay,losangeles,seattle,sandiego,sacramento,fresno,inlandempire,orangecounty --category fua --max-price 2500 --has-pic --json --select items.title,items.priceDisplay,items.site,items.canonicalUrl

Fans out across 8 west-coast sites in parallel and narrows the JSON to the shape an agent or jq pipeline needs.

Watch for a 1BR that isn't furnished or a sublet

craigslist-pp-cli watch save sf-1br --query '1BR' --sites sfbay --category apa --max-price 2800 --negate furnished,sublet,studio,airbnb && craigslist-pp-cli watch run sf-1br --seed-only && craigslist-pp-cli watch tail sf-1br --interval 5m --json

Saved search uses negative keywords Craigslist itself doesn't support; the seed-only run primes seen_listings so the next tail cycle emits only true new listings as [NEW] and [PRICE-DROP] events.

Triage a too-good listing

craigslist-pp-cli cl-sync --site sfbay --category apa --since 7d && craigslist-pp-cli scam-score 7915891289 --json && craigslist-pp-cli dupe-cluster --pid 7915891289 --json

cl-sync populates the local store; score returns the per-rule contributions; dupe-cluster shows whether the same listing exists in other cities. Both downstream commands need the store populated to return useful data.

Quote a fair-price range

craigslist-pp-cli median 'iphone 15' --category mob --since 30d --by-city --json

p25/p50/p75 over the last 30 days, split by city, computed from the local listing_snapshot table.

What hit while I was asleep

craigslist-pp-cli since 12h --site sfbay --category sss --query 'macbook pro' --json

Reads sitemap-by-date for the target window, fetches detail only for listings not already in the local store, emits the diff.

Auth Setup

No authentication required.

Run craigslist-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 — --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:

  craigslist-pp-cli postings --agent --select id,name,status
  

• Previewable — --dry-run shows the request without sending

• Offline-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:

craigslist-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
craigslist-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
craigslist-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally at ~/.craigslist-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless CRAIGSLIST_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or CRAIGSLIST_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.

craigslist-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
craigslist-pp-cli --profile briefing postings
craigslist-pp-cli profile list --json
craigslist-pp-cli profile show briefing
craigslist-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:

1. Empty, help, or --help → show craigslist-pp-cli --help output
2. Starts with install → ends with mcp → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
3. Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with --agent)

MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP server:

   go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/commerce/craigslist/cmd/craigslist-pp-mcp@latest
   

2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add craigslist-pp-mcp -- craigslist-pp-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which craigslist-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
3. Execute with the --agent flag:

   craigslist-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
   

4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: craigslist-pp-cli <command> --help.