Pricebuddy cli

PriceBuddy — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the pricebuddy 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 Go (requires Go 1.26.3 or newer):

   go install github.com/jez500/pricebuddy-cli/cmd/pricebuddy@latest
   

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

Alternatively, download a pre-built binary from the latest release, or build from source with make build.

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.

Mirrors the full PriceBuddy REST API (products, stores, product-sources, tags, auth) with agent-native JSON output, then adds a local SQLite store and price-analytics commands built on the daily price history embedded in every product. Ask 'what's on sale', 'what dropped this week', or 'is this its lowest ever' in one call, offline, with zero extra API load.

When to Use This CLI

Use pricebuddy when an agent or script needs to read or analyze a PriceBuddy instance: checking what is on sale, summarizing price drops, inspecting a product's price history, or managing tracked products, stores, sources, and tags. It is ideal for recurring price-watch automations because price analytics run against a local mirror with no extra API load.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Do not use this CLI to scrape retailer sites directly — PriceBuddy's own scraper does that; this CLI only reads/writes the PriceBuddy API.
• Do not use it to manage a multi-tenant or hosted PriceBuddy SaaS — it targets a single self-hosted instance via PRICEBUDDY_BASE_URL.
• Do not use it for real-time price alerts — it reflects the last scrape PriceBuddy recorded, not live retailer prices.

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Local price intelligence

• history — View a product's full daily price history as a time series with min/max/avg, current, and trend.

  Reach for this to reason about one product's price over time instead of parsing nested price_cache yourself.

  pricebuddy history 1 --agent --select points.date,points.price
  

• deals — Surface tracked products whose current price is at or below their notify_price / notify_percent threshold.

  Use for 'is anything I track on sale right now' without paging the API per product.

  pricebuddy deals --agent
  

• drops — Find products whose price fell over the last N days, using embedded history across the whole watch list at once.

  Use for a time-windowed 'what fell this week' report; use deals for threshold buy-signals.

  pricebuddy drops --days 7 --agent
  

• watch — Review favourited products with current price and distance to each notify target, sorted by closeness to trigger.

  Use to glance at your starred items and see which are closest to firing an alert.

  pricebuddy watch --json
  

• lowest — Compute the historical minimum per store and flag whether the current price matches the lowest ever seen.

  Use to judge whether the current price is actually a good deal versus its own history.

  pricebuddy lowest 1
  

• since — Digest of price moves across all tracked products since a time window (e.g. 7d, 2w).

  Use for a recent-activity summary; use history for one product's full curve.

  pricebuddy since 7d --agent
  

Command Reference

insights — Server-computed buy/wait verdict for a product

• pricebuddy insights <product> — Deal-score verdict, percentile vs own history, per-store win rates, cheapest months, and notify-target progress (GET /products/{id}?include=insights). Numeric id or title substring. --plain for a human summary, --agent for the JSON tree, e.g. --select insights.dealScore.

meta-extract — Preview a URL without saving

• pricebuddy meta-extract <url> — Extract title, price, image, description and availability from a product URL without persisting anything (--store-file to test a scrape strategy, --stdin for a full JSON body). Needs the meta-extraction:extract token ability.

pricebuddy-auth — Manage pricebuddy auth

• pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth login — Login
• pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth logout — Logout

product-sources — Manage product sources

• pricebuddy product-sources create — Create Product Source
• pricebuddy product-sources delete — Delete Product Source
• pricebuddy product-sources detail — Show Product Source
• pricebuddy product-sources pagination — List of Product Sources
• pricebuddy product-sources search-all — Search all Product Sources
• pricebuddy product-sources update — Update Product Source

products — Manage products

• pricebuddy products create — Create Product
• pricebuddy products delete — Delete Product
• pricebuddy products detail — Show Product
• pricebuddy products pagination — List of Products
• pricebuddy products update — Update Product
• pricebuddy products pause <id> / resume <id> — Pause/resume price checks
• pricebuddy products set-interval <id> <seconds> — Custom check interval (--clear to follow the global schedule)
• pricebuddy products notify-in-stock <id> <on|off> — Toggle back-in-stock notifications

stores — Manage stores

• pricebuddy stores create — Create Store
• pricebuddy stores delete — Delete Store
• pricebuddy stores detail — Show Store
• pricebuddy stores pagination — List of Stores
• pricebuddy stores update — Update Store

tags — Manage tags

• pricebuddy tags create — Create Tag
• pricebuddy tags delete — Delete Tag
• pricebuddy tags detail — Show Tag
• pricebuddy tags pagination — List of Tags
• pricebuddy tags update — Update Tag

Finding the right command

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

pricebuddy 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

What's on sale right now

pricebuddy deals --agent

Lists tracked products at or below their notify threshold in agent-readable JSON.

Just the price series

pricebuddy history 1 --agent --select points.date,points.price

Returns only the date/price points for product 1, dropping the verbose per-store envelope.

Weekly drop report

pricebuddy drops --days 7 --json

Every product whose price fell in the last seven days.

Search retailer sources for a product

pricebuddy product-sources search-all ipad --json

Search the configured product sources for a query.

Offline full-text search

pricebuddy search ipad --data-source local

Full-text search your synced products offline (no API call).

Auth Setup

PriceBuddy uses a bearer token (Laravel Sanctum personal access token). Set PRICEBUDDY_API_TOKEN to a token you created in the app, or run pricebuddy auth login with your email/password to issue one. Point the CLI at your instance with PRICEBUDDY_BASE_URL (e.g. http://price-buddy.lndo.site/api).

Run pricebuddy 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:

  pricebuddy pricebuddy-auth login --email [email protected] --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

• Explicit retries — use --idempotent only when an already-existing create should count as success, and --ignore-missing only 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:

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

Entries are stored locally at ~/.local/share/pricebuddy/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless PRICEBUDDY_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or PRICEBUDDY_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.

pricebuddy profile save briefing --json
pricebuddy --profile briefing pricebuddy-auth login --email [email protected]
pricebuddy profile list --json
pricebuddy profile show briefing
pricebuddy 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:

1. Empty, help, or --help → show pricebuddy --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/jez500/pricebuddy-cli/cmd/pricebuddy-mcp@latest
   

2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add pricebuddy-mcp -- pricebuddy-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which pricebuddy 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:

   pricebuddy <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
   

4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: pricebuddy <command> --help.