Techmeme — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the techmeme-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. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows:

   npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install techmeme --cli-only
   

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2. Verify: techmeme-pp-cli --version
3. Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for 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/productivity/techmeme/cmd/techmeme-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 the Techmeme CLI when you need curated, authoritative tech news without opening a browser. Ideal for morning catch-up ('since 8h'), topic monitoring ('track add OpenAI'), source analysis ('sources'), and AI agents that need to answer 'what's happening in tech right now' with structured data.

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.

Time intelligence

• since — See every tech headline from the last N hours — the perfect catch-up when you've been away

  When an agent needs to brief a user on what happened in tech while they were in meetings, this is the single command that answers it

  techmeme-pp-cli since 4h --agent
  

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• digest — Get a day's tech news grouped by topic — the briefing you'd write if you had time

  When an agent needs to produce a tech news briefing for a specific date, this structures raw headlines into a readable summary

  techmeme-pp-cli digest --date 2026-05-08 --agent
  

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Persistent monitoring

• track — Save topics and get alerts when they hit Techmeme — persistent monitoring without browser tabs

  Agents monitoring specific companies or technologies can subscribe to exactly what matters without polling the full feed

  techmeme-pp-cli track add 'OpenAI' && techmeme-pp-cli track check --agent
  

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News intelligence

• sources — See which publications dominate Techmeme and track source frequency over time

  When analyzing media landscape or choosing which publications to prioritize, this gives hard data on source influence

  techmeme-pp-cli sources --top 20 --agent
  

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• trending — Extract the hottest topics from recent headlines using frequency analysis on cached data

  When an agent needs to answer 'what's hot in tech right now' with data instead of vibes

  techmeme-pp-cli trending --hours 24 --agent
  

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• velocity — Find stories that are blowing up — multiple sources covering the same topic in a short window

  When an agent needs to identify breaking news vs steady coverage, velocity shows what's accelerating now

  techmeme-pp-cli velocity --agent
  

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• author — Find all Techmeme headlines by a specific journalist across the cached archive

  When tracking a specific journalist's coverage or building a media contact list, this surfaces their Techmeme footprint

  techmeme-pp-cli author 'Kara Swisher' --agent
  

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Command Reference

feed-xml — Manage feed xml

• techmeme-pp-cli feed-xml — Top 15 headlines currently on Techmeme. RSS 2.0 format. Each item has title, link (to Techmeme permalink),...

lb-opml — Manage lb opml

• techmeme-pp-cli lb-opml — OPML file listing Techmeme's top 51 sources with source name, website URL, and RSS feed URL. Updated regularly based...

river — Manage river

• techmeme-pp-cli river — 5-day rolling archive of all Techmeme headlines in reverse chronological order. 150+ headlines with timestamp,...

techmeme-search — Manage techmeme search

• techmeme-pp-cli techmeme-search headlines — Search Techmeme headlines. Supports quoted phrases, wildcards, +/-, AND/OR/NOT, parentheses. Can filter by url,...
• techmeme-pp-cli techmeme-search rss — RSS feed of search results. Same query syntax as /search/query. Subscribe in any RSS reader for alerts on specific...

Finding the right command

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

techmeme-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 briefing

techmeme-pp-cli since 12h --agent --select title,source,time

Catch up on overnight tech news with just the essentials — title, source, and timestamp

Track a company

techmeme-pp-cli search 'Apple' --agent --select title,source,link

Find all recent Techmeme headlines about Apple

Windowed archive search

techmeme-pp-cli search 'Apple' --days 30 --json

search queries Techmeme's live archive (back to ~2005). Each JSON record carries a date field (ISO YYYY-MM-DD, empty string when the results page shows no parseable date). --days N keeps only results dated within the last N days (undated records are dropped when the filter is active). Zero hits in JSON mode emit an empty JSON array [] on stdout, so piped consumers always get valid JSON.

Media landscape

techmeme-pp-cli sources --top 20 --agent

See which 20 publications dominate Techmeme's curated feed

Breaking news detection

techmeme-pp-cli velocity --agent

Find stories gaining momentum — multiple sources in a short window

Daily summary

techmeme-pp-cli digest --agent

Today's tech news grouped by topic for a quick read

Auth Setup

No authentication required.

Run techmeme-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:

  techmeme-pp-cli river --agent --select id,name,status
  

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• 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:

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

Entries are stored locally at ~/.techmeme-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless TECHMEME_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or TECHMEME_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:

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.

techmeme-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
techmeme-pp-cli --profile briefing river
techmeme-pp-cli profile list --json
techmeme-pp-cli profile show briefing
techmeme-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

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

1. Empty, help, or --help → show techmeme-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/productivity/techmeme/cmd/techmeme-pp-mcp@latest
   

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2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add techmeme-pp-mcp -- techmeme-pp-mcp
   

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3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which techmeme-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:

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

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