name

pp-github-contents

description

Download any GitHub folder without cloning — plan it first, verify it after, re-sync only what changed. Trigger phrases: `download a folder from github`, `download this github directory`, `grab files from a repo without cloning`, `check if my local copy matches the repo`, `how big is that github folder`, `use github-contents`, `run github-contents`.

author

Rick van de Laar

license

Apache-2.0

argument-hint

<command> [args] | install cli|mcp

allowed-tools

Read Bash

metadata

openclaw

requires

install

bins

github-contents-pp-cli

kind

bins

module

github-contents-pp-cli

github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/developer-tools/github-contents/cmd/github-contents-pp-cli

GitHub Contents — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

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

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 github-contents --cli-only
```
Verify: github-contents-pp-cli --version
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 1.26.5 or newer). This installs into $GOPATH/bin (default $HOME/go/bin), so add that directory to $PATH instead:

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/developer-tools/github-contents/cmd/github-contents-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.

Addresses owner/repo/path#ref like degit, but streams big files past the 1 MB contents-API limit via the raw CDN, preserves folder structure, and gives every command --json for agents. The plan/verify/sync-dir loop — preview cost before downloading, prove local files match remote by git blob SHA, then fetch only the diff — exists in no other GitHub download tool.

When to Use This CLI

Reach for this CLI when a task needs files out of a GitHub repo without a full clone: downloading a subdirectory (docs, datasets, templates, book collections) with structure preserved, previewing what a download costs, verifying a local copy still matches upstream, or keeping a mirror current with minimal bandwidth. It works unauthenticated on public repos and uses at most a couple of API requests per operation.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

Cloning a repo with git history — use git clone or gh repo clone
Working with issues, pull requests, or actions — use the gh CLI
Writing, committing, or pushing files to a repo — this CLI is read-only
Downloading Git LFS binaries — v1 detects and warns but does not resolve LFS pointers
Searching code across GitHub — use gh search or the code-search API

Unique Capabilities

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

Plan-verify-sync loop

plan — Preview exactly what a fetch would download — file list, sizes, total bytes, API-request cost vs your remaining quota, and LFS-pointer warnings — before spending any bandwidth.

Run this before fetch to know a download is 122 files / 1.9 GB and costs only 2 API requests, instead of finding out mid-download.
```
github-contents-pp-cli plan mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent
```
verify — Check whether a previously downloaded directory still matches the remote at a ref — match/changed/missing/extra per file — without re-downloading anything.

Proves 'this workspace matches ref X' cheaply — the post-download assertion CI and agents otherwise can't make without re-fetching.
```
github-contents-pp-cli verify ./books mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent
```
sync-dir — Update an existing downloaded directory in place, fetching only files that changed upstream or are missing locally.

The weekly-mirror command: keeps a local collection current for the price of one API call plus only the changed bytes.
```
github-contents-pp-cli sync-dir ./books mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent
```

Remote inspection

stats — Size and file-count breakdown of any repo path by subfolder and extension, plus the largest files, from a single API request.

Answers 'how big is this directory and what is in it' in one call before committing to a download.
```
github-contents-pp-cli stats mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent --select by_folder
```
search — Search previously fetched repo listings from the local store — find files by name or pattern with zero API calls.

Lets agents answer 'which repo path had file X' from data already on disk instead of re-walking the API.
```
github-contents-pp-cli search "transformers" --limit 20
```

Command Reference

blobs — Raw git blobs — fetch file content by SHA (works for files up to 100 MB)

github-contents-pp-cli blobs <owner> <repo> <file_sha> — Get a blob (base64-encoded content) by its git SHA

contents — List directories and read files via the repository contents API

github-contents-pp-cli contents <owner> <repo> <path> — Get a directory listing (JSON array) or file metadata+content (JSON object, base64, files up to 1 MB).

rate-limit — API quota status — check headroom before and during bulk downloads

github-contents-pp-cli rate-limit — Show remaining API quota (5000/h with a token, 60/h without)

releases — Repository releases and their downloadable assets

github-contents-pp-cli releases latest — Get the latest published release
github-contents-pp-cli releases list — List releases with their assets
github-contents-pp-cli releases download <owner> <repo> — Download release assets (latest, or --tag) matching --pattern into --out; --list-only previews matches without downloading

repos — Repository metadata (default branch, visibility, size)

github-contents-pp-cli repos branches — List branches of a repository
github-contents-pp-cli repos commits — List commits, optionally filtered to a path (newest first)
github-contents-pp-cli repos get — Get repository metadata including the default branch

tarball — Full-repository snapshot as a .tar.gz

github-contents-pp-cli tarball <owner/repo[#ref]> — Download the whole repo at a ref as a tarball (use fetch for a subdirectory)

trees — Git trees — one-request recursive listings of an entire repo or subtree

github-contents-pp-cli trees <owner> <repo> <tree_sha> — Get a git tree. With --recursive, returns every file under it in one request (check the truncated flag on huge repos)

Finding the right command

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

github-contents-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

Download a folder, keep the structure

github-contents-pp-cli fetch mjwoon/AI-readings/books --out ./books

Recursive download of one subdirectory; subfolders and filenames (including spaces) arrive intact.

Preview cost before a big download

github-contents-pp-cli plan mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent

Machine-readable plan: files, total_bytes, api_cost, lfs_pointers — decide before spending bandwidth.

Only PDFs, nothing else

github-contents-pp-cli fetch mjwoon/AI-readings/books --include "*.pdf" --out ./pdfs

Glob filters restrict the download without changing the preserved structure.

Narrow a huge tree listing for an agent

github-contents-pp-cli trees mjwoon AI-readings main --recursive --agent --select tree.path,tree.size

The recursive tree of a repo is thousands of entries; --select keeps only the two fields an agent needs.

Keep a mirror current

github-contents-pp-cli sync-dir ./books mjwoon/AI-readings/books --agent

One API call to diff by blob SHA, then only changed or new files are streamed down.

Auth Setup

Auth is optional: public repos work unauthenticated (60 req/h); a token raises the limit to 5000 req/h and enables private repos. The persistence path is the environment variable:

export GITHUB_TOKEN="your-token-here"   # or GH_TOKEN

github-contents-pp-cli auth setup prints these generic env-var instructions (this CLI has no configured token-creation URL, so --launch has nothing to open). Verify with github-contents-pp-cli auth status or github-contents-pp-cli doctor.

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:
```
github-contents-pp-cli blobs mock-value mock-value mock-value --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 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.

Paths and state

Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:

Use --home <dir> for one invocation, or set GITHUB_CONTENTS_HOME=<dir> to relocate all four path kinds under one root.
Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge: GITHUB_CONTENTS_CONFIG_DIR, GITHUB_CONTENTS_DATA_DIR, GITHUB_CONTENTS_STATE_DIR, GITHUB_CONTENTS_CACHE_DIR.
Resolution order is per-kind env var, --home, GITHUB_CONTENTS_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.
config contains settings like config.toml and profiles. data contains credentials.toml, data.db, cookies, and auth sidecars. state contains persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log. cache contains regenerable HTTP/cache files.
Stored secrets live in credentials.toml under the data dir. Existing legacy config.toml secrets are read for compatibility and leave config.toml on the first auth write.
Run github-contents-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to surface path and credential-location warnings. agent-context exposes a schema v4 paths block for agents that need the resolved dirs.

For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github-contents": {
      "command": "github-contents-pp-mcp",
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_CONTENTS_HOME": "/srv/github-contents"
      }
    }
  }
}

Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use GITHUB_CONTENTS_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing GITHUB_CONTENTS_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.

Automatic learning

This CLI ships a self-capturing learning loop. The CLI does its own bookkeeping: every invocation is journaled locally, a failed flag followed by a corrected retry auto-derives a flag_alias candidate, and a teach on a query family without a playbook auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal. Your job is judgment only: recall first, act on surfaced candidates, teach the final answer, playbook amend when you observe a correction. You never record failures by hand.

Step 1: `recall` before any discovery

Before list/search/drill commands on a new user question, run:

github-contents-pp-cli recall "<user's question>" --agent

The response envelope:

{
  "query": "...",
  "normalized": "<normalized form>",
  "query_entities": ["..."],
  "found": true | false,
  "match_score": 0.0,
  "results": [
    { "resource_id": "...", "resource_type": "...", "venue": "...",
      "confidence": 2, "entity_match": "exact|partial|unknown",
      "source": "taught|preseed|pattern", "warnings": ["..."] }
  ],
  "mismatches": [ /* only when --debug-mismatches */ ],
  "warnings": [ /* top-level */ ],
  "candidates": [
    { "id": 12, "class": "flag_alias | playbook_candidate",
      "summary": "...", "sightings": 3, "last_seen": "...",
      "rationale": "...",
      "next_action": ["<trial command>", "github-contents-pp-cli learnings confirm 12"] }
  ],
  "playbook": {
    "query_family": "...",
    "playbook": {
      "steps": [ { "cmd": "<command with {slot} substitution>", "purpose": "..." } ],
      "entity_slots": ["$ENTITY"],
      "expected_tool_calls": 3
    },
    "slots_resolved": { "$ENTITY": { "token": "<live token>", "canonical": "<canonical>" } },
    "notes": "<workarounds + gotchas for this query family>"
  },
  "notes": "<duplicate surface for non-playbook callers>"
}

Empty-store short-circuit: if the store has no learnings, playbooks, or candidates yet (recall finds nothing and learnings list and learnings candidates are both empty), skip recall for the rest of this session instead of taxing every query; resume recall-first once something has been taught.

Step 2: decision tree

Read candidates, playbook, notes, results[0], and warnings in that order:

if Candidates present (warnings include "candidates_present"):
    -> candidates are try-then-confirm, never facts. Follow each candidate's
       two-step next_action verbatim: run the trial command first, then run
       `learnings confirm <id>` only after the trial verified the behavior.
       Reject a wrong candidate with `learnings reject <id>`.
    -> NEVER re-teach something recall surfaced as a candidate; confirm or
       reject that candidate instead of teaching a duplicate.
    -> candidates ride alongside playbooks and resource hits, not instead of
       them; continue with the branches below after acting on them.

if Playbook present:
    -> READ Playbook.notes verbatim FIRST (workarounds + gotchas the CLI surface doesn't expose)
    -> replay Playbook.steps in order, substituting Playbook.slots_resolved entries
       for the entity slot tokens. If a step's slot is unresolved, fall back to
       discovery for that step only.
    -> the Playbook's expected_tool_calls is a budget; if you find yourself running
       materially more, record the divergence via `github-contents-pp-cli playbook amend`
       at end-of-session.

elif Notes present (no Playbook):
    -> read Notes verbatim before any discovery step; they carry known gotchas
       for this query family even when no structured choreography exists yet.

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "exact" AND Results[0].Confidence >= 2:
    -> skip discovery; fetch live data for Results[*].ResourceID in parallel

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "partial":
    -> candidate hint, NOT a hit; read the resource title to validate before trusting

elif (any row in Mismatches[] when --debug-mismatches was passed):
    -> treat as cold start; the stored learning is for a different entity
       (different canonical resolved from query_entities)

else:  // Found == false, no playbook, no notes
    -> cold start; run discovery normally; teach the answer afterward (Step 4).
       If the family has no playbook yet, that teach auto-synthesizes a
       playbook candidate from this session's journal - you do not need to
       record one by hand.

Playbook and Notes are orthogonal to the per-resource path. A recall response can carry both a Playbook AND a Results[] hit - use both: the Playbook tells you which choreography to run; the resource hits short-circuit specific steps. Default to skipping mismatches; pass --debug-mismatches only when investigating cold-start surprises.

Candidate judgment details: learnings confirm <id> prints the candidate's full payload before materializing it - check that the printed payload matches the behavior you verified. learnings reject <id> tombstones the derivation signature so the same candidate does not resurface. The envelope carries only the few candidates worth acting on now; github-contents-pp-cli learnings candidates lists the full open set.

Graceful degradation: if learnings confirm is an unknown command, you are driving an older binary - ignore the candidates guidance and follow the rest of the protocol.

Step 3: always read `warnings`

low_confidence: row exists at confidence<2. Treat as a hint, not a skip-discovery hit.
resource_not_in_store: the local store doesn't have the resource the learning points at. The match validator couldn't classify entities — direct-fetch and re-evaluate.
cross_alias_match (per-result): the row was taught under a different alias and matched the live query's canonical via entity_lookups (e.g., a "USA" teach satisfying a "United States" recall). Trust the resource_id.
similar_shape_different_entity:<canonical> (top-level): a structurally matching row exists but its canonical entity differs from the live query's. Treated as cold start; the warning carries the conflicting canonical as a hint, but the row is NOT promoted into Results.
ambiguous_alias (top-level): a single query entity resolved to multiple canonicals (e.g., "Cards" → Arizona Cardinals + St. Louis Cardinals). Surface the ambiguity from context before committing to a resource.
candidates_present (top-level): the envelope carries a candidates section. Handle it via the candidates branch in Step 2 before anything else.
lookup_refresh_available (top-level): an entity in the query has no lookup row yet, but locally stored data could provide one. Re-run plan, fetch, or sync-dir against the target to refresh the local store (this CLI has no standalone sync command).
Top-level no_learnings_for_query_family: the table had no rows above the Jaccard floor. Pure cold start.

Step 4: `teach &` after finalizing your response - always

Teaching is unconditional. After resolving a query the store could not answer, background-teach the final resource mapping - no call-count threshold, no judging whether it was "worth" learning. The teach is the anchor of the loop: it triggers playbook synthesis for a family without a playbook, and same-referent phrasings fold into one family so near-duplicate teaches do not fragment the store. Fire it after assembling your user-facing response but BEFORE emitting it, with a shell & so the call returns immediately:

github-contents-pp-cli teach --query "<user's question>" --resource-type <type> --resource <id1> --resource <id2>
# (append shell `&` to background it)

Silent on success. Errors only land in teach.log under the resolved state dir. Teach the most specific resource - if the user asked a broad question and you walked through parent records to find the specific answer, teach the leaf id, not the parent. The CLI uses seeded entity_lookups for cross-alias resolution at recall time, so a teach under one alias (e.g., "Niners") satisfies future queries under another alias (e.g., "49ers", "San Francisco") automatically.

PII rule: teach the structural question with identifiers stripped - never include names, emails, phone numbers, account ids, or other personal identifiers in taught queries or notes. The CLI scans teach queries for obvious email/phone shapes and warns, but does not block; strip before teaching rather than relying on the warning.

Step 5: playbooks - optional flags, automatic synthesis

You do not need to decide whether a session "deserves" a playbook: a teach on a family without one auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal, and the next session judges it via confirm/reject. Attach explicit playbook flags only when you already hold choreography worth recording verbatim - workarounds the CLI didn't surface (silently-dropped flags, undocumented params, pagination tricks, payload gotchas). Prefer the integrated one-call form - record the resource learning and the playbook in the same teach invocation:

# Common case: record both the resource learning AND the playbook in one call.
github-contents-pp-cli teach \
  --query "<user's question>" \
  --resource <id> \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --playbook-notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md
# (append shell `&` to background it)

# Alternate: playbook-only (no resource to record alongside).
github-contents-pp-cli teach-playbook \
  --query "<user's question>" \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md

Playbook files are JSON with steps, entity_slots, expected_tool_calls. Notes files are markdown carrying the gotchas verbatim. File-free callers (MCP-only agents) pass the same content inline: --playbook-json and --playbook-notes on the integrated teach form, --playbook-json and --notes on teach-playbook. On the integrated teach form, the playbook flags are optional - omit them entirely for a resource-only teach. On the standalone teach-playbook form, at least one of the playbook and notes flags must be set; both empty is rejected. Playbooks are keyed on the structural query family (entities stripped) so a recipe taught from one entity-shaped query applies to every other query of the same shape, with slots_resolved binding the live query's canonical at recall time.

When you DO find a playbook on a future recall, treat it as ground truth: replay the steps with slots_resolved substitutions, skip the discovery that the choreography already documents, and read notes before any step.

Step 6: `playbook amend &` when your debug response identifies a correction

If your debug-protocol response identifies a concrete correction the notes or playbook should know — a workaround, an undocumented endpoint shape, a stale field name, observed schema drift, an empty-payload fallback — fire playbook amend BEFORE emitting your user-facing response. Same fire-and-forget posture as teach.

github-contents-pp-cli playbook amend \
  --query "<exact recall query string>" \
  --add-note "<your concrete correction>"
# (append shell `&` to background it)

What counts as worth amending: a behavior you OBSERVED this session that future-you would benefit from knowing. Examples worth amending:

A workaround for a CLI surface that silently drops or misorders a flag.
An undocumented endpoint shape (response wrapped in {meta, results}, payload nested two levels deeper than the docs claim).
Observed schema drift (a field renamed, an index that shifted between seasons, a category label that the API now returns lower-cased).

What does NOT belong in notes:

The year-specific or entity-specific answer to the user's question. That's the response, not a learning.
Per-team / per-athlete / per-row data the playbook already retrieves at runtime.
Statements that paraphrase what the existing notes already say.

The amend command appends to the family's existing notes with a timestamped marker ([amend YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MMZ]: <text>). Multiple amends accumulate; the audit trail is visible. If no playbook exists yet for the family, amend creates a notes-only one (so cold-start corrections still land).

PII discipline for amend notes

playbook amend notes are designed to potentially flow upstream as shared knowledge in future versions of the Printing Press. Keep them clean of user-identifying content so the upstream-contribution path stays open without retroactive scrubbing:

Do NOT embed paths to user filesystems, personal API keys or tokens, user email addresses, user GitHub handles, or specific query histories tied to a single user.
Acceptable: endpoint shapes, undocumented field names, API gotchas, observed schema drift, workarounds for CLI surfaces, generalizable pagination or retry tactics.

If a correction is only meaningful with user-specific context, it belongs in a personal note, not in the playbook amend.

Measuring the loop

github-contents-pp-cli learnings stats reports recall hit rate, teach-to-reuse, playbook resolution rate, and candidate confirm/reject counts from the local learn_events table. Rates are null until they have a denominator; everything stays on this machine. Use it to check whether the loop is earning its keep for this CLI.

Disabling learning

--no-learn on a single command short-circuits both recall and the teach write path. Use for deterministic agent flows or tests that must not be affected by accumulated learnings.
GITHUB_CONTENTS_NO_LEARN=true in the environment globally disables the pipeline.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

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

Entries are stored locally as feedback.jsonl under the resolved data dir. They are never POSTed unless GITHUB_CONTENTS_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or GITHUB_CONTENTS_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 or recurring agent reuses the same saved flags while providing different input each run.

github-contents-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
github-contents-pp-cli --profile briefing blobs mock-value mock-value mock-value
github-contents-pp-cli profile list --json
github-contents-pp-cli profile show briefing
github-contents-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
4	Authentication required
5	API error (upstream issue)
7	Rate limited (wait and retry)
10	Config error

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

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

MCP Server Installation

Install the MCP server:

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/developer-tools/github-contents/cmd/github-contents-pp-mcp@latest

claude mcp add github-contents-pp-mcp -- github-contents-pp-mcp

Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

Check if installed: which github-contents-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.

Execute with the --agent flag:

github-contents-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent

If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: github-contents-pp-cli <command> --help.

FilesExpand file tree

SKILL.md

Latest commit

History