archive.today — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the

archive-is-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:

bash

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press install archive-is --cli-only

Verify:
```
archive-is-pp-cli --version
```
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+):

bash

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/archive-is/cmd/archive-is-pp-cli@latest

--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

Reach for this whenever a user wants to archive a URL, read a paywalled article, check whether something was previously archived, or batch-capture a list of URLs for research. Specifically good when:

A user sends a paywalled link and asks "can you read this" →
```
read
```
fetches text via archive
They want to preserve a URL that might change →
```
save
```
forces a fresh capture
They want historical versions →
```
history
```
lists all known snapshots
They have 20+ URLs to archive →
```
bulk
```
runs rate-limited batch archival

Don't reach for this if the URL is trivially scrapeable without archive services (no paywall, robots-allowed, direct HTTP works), or if the user wants the original source rather than a cached version.

Unique Capabilities

The whole CLI is unique — archive.today has no official API. But within this CLI, certain commands are the differentiators.

The hero commands

read <url>
— Find or create an archive for a URL. Looks up existing snapshots first (Memento timegate → CDX fallback); submits a fresh capture only if nothing exists. The "always do the right thing" command.
This is how 90% of agent calls should start. It's idempotent — calling it twice on the same URL doesn't double-submit.
get <url> [--format text|html]
/
tldr <url>
— Fetch article text, optionally LLM-summarized. Automatic Wayback fallback when archive.today serves a CAPTCHA (which happens daily to cloud IPs).
tldr
pipes the fetched text through a summarization step — useful for agent chains where you want a short take without shipping 20KB of HTML back.

Durability operations

save <url>
— Force a fresh capture via
```
/submit/?url=<x>&anyway=1
```
. Use when
```
read
```
returns an existing snapshot that's too old or missing a paywall update.
history <url>
— List all known snapshots via Memento timemap parsing. Shows every capture date across both archive.today and Wayback.
bulk [file]
— Rate-limited batch archiving from a file or stdin. Reads URLs one per line, submits each with backoff, returns a report of successes / failures / pre-existing.
grep -oE 'https?://[^ )]+' notes.md | archive-is-pp-cli bulk -
archives every URL in a markdown file.
request <url>
— Fire-and-forget submit with optional wait+poll. Useful for long captures where you want to come back later.

Observability

snapshots newest <url>
— Just the newest snapshot URL for a target, useful in scripts.
captures
— List your local capture index (post-sync).
feeds
— archive.today's global recent-archives feed.
--backend archive-is,wayback
— Every read/get accepts a backend preference. Defaults to archive-is with Wayback fallback; flip the order for Wayback-primary.

Command Reference

Archive + retrieve:

```
archive-is-pp-cli read <url>
```
— Find or create (hero command)
```
archive-is-pp-cli get <url>
```
— Fetch article text (with Wayback fallback)
```
archive-is-pp-cli tldr <url>
```
— Fetch + summarize
```
archive-is-pp-cli save <url>
```
— Force fresh capture
```
archive-is-pp-cli request <url>
```
— Fire-and-forget submit
```
archive-is-pp-cli check <url>
```
— Does an archive exist?

Listing + history:

```
archive-is-pp-cli history <url>
```
— All known snapshots
```
archive-is-pp-cli newest <url>
```
— Newest snapshot URL
```
archive-is-pp-cli captures
```
— Local capture index
```
archive-is-pp-cli feeds
```
— Global recent feed

Batch:

```
archive-is-pp-cli bulk [file]
```
— Batch from file or stdin

Local store:

archive-is-pp-cli sync

archive

export

import

— Local SQLite ops

Auth + health:

```
archive-is-pp-cli auth
```
— Config (no API key needed; auth is a no-op)
```
archive-is-pp-cli doctor
```
— Verify backend reachability

Recipes

Read a paywalled article

bash

archive-is-pp-cli read "https://www.wsj.com/articles/..." --agent
# or: return just the text
archive-is-pp-cli get "https://www.wsj.com/articles/..." --format text --agent

read

returns the archive URL (finding existing or creating new).

get --format text

returns the article body, falling back to Wayback if archive.today CAPTCHAs.

Preserve a URL before it changes

bash

archive-is-pp-cli save "https://example.com/important-page" --agent
archive-is-pp-cli history "https://example.com/important-page" --agent  # verify

Force capture, then check history to confirm the new snapshot registered.

Bulk archive a research batch

bash

grep -oE 'https?://[^ )]+' research-notes.md | archive-is-pp-cli bulk - --agent
# or from a file:
archive-is-pp-cli bulk urls.txt --agent

Reads URLs one per line, submits each with exponential backoff, returns per-URL status (archived, pre-existing, failed) as JSON.

Wayback-preferred for a reliable-read

bash

archive-is-pp-cli read "https://ft.com/content/xyz" --backend wayback,archive-is --agent

Use when the Wayback Machine snapshot is known to be cleaner or archive.today is rate-limiting.

Auth Setup

No API key required. Archive.today and Wayback Machine are both public. The

auth

subcommand exists for consistency but is a no-op —

doctor

reports "Auth: not required" which is the expected state.

Optional env:

```
ARCHIVE_IS_BASE_URL
```
— override archive.today host (for mirrors)
```
WAYBACK_BASE_URL
```
— override Wayback Machine host

Agent Mode

Add

--agent

to any command. Expands to

--json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes --no-prompt

. Every action command also prints structured

next_actions

hints on stderr when called non-interactively — the calling agent sees "tried X, got Y, consider Z" automatically.

Notable flags:

```
--submit-timeout <duration>
```
— max wait for a fresh submit (default
```
10m
```
;
```
0
```
= unbounded)
```
--backend archive-is,wayback
```
— backend preference and fallback order
```
--format text|html
```
—
```
get
```
/
```
tldr
```
output format

Filtering output

--select

accepts dotted paths to descend into nested responses; arrays traverse element-wise:

bash

archive-is-pp-cli <command> --agent --select id,name
archive-is-pp-cli <command> --agent --select items.id,items.owner.name

Use this to narrow huge payloads to the fields you actually need — critical for deeply nested API responses.

Response envelope

Data-layer commands wrap output in

{"meta": {...}, "results": <data>}

. Parse

.results

for data and

.meta.source

to know whether it's

live

or local. The

N results (live)

summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a TTY; piped/agent consumers see pure JSON on stdout.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	Usage error
3	Not found (no snapshot exists)
5	API error (archive.today or Wayback down)
7	Rate limited (too many submits)

Installation

bash

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/archive-is/cmd/archive-is-pp-cli@latest
archive-is-pp-cli doctor

MCP Server

bash

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/archive-is/cmd/archive-is-pp-mcp@latest
claude mcp add archive-is-pp-mcp -- archive-is-pp-mcp

Argument Parsing

Given

$ARGUMENTS

Empty,
help
, or
--help
→ run
```
archive-is-pp-cli --help
```
install
→ CLI; install mcp
→ MCP
Anything that looks like a URL, or "archive <url>" / "bypass paywall on <url>" →
```
read <url> --agent
```
is the default — it's idempotent and covers the 90% case.
"bulk archive" / "archive these" →
```
bulk
```
from stdin if URLs are pasted, else ask for the file path.

Agent Workflow Features

This CLI exposes three shared agent-workflow capabilities patched in from cli-printing-press PR #218.

Named profiles

Persist a set of flags under a name and reuse them across invocations.

bash

# Save the current non-default flags as a named profile
archive-is-pp-cli profile save <name>

# Use a profile — overlays its values onto any flag you don't set explicitly
archive-is-pp-cli --profile <name> <command>

# List / inspect / remove
archive-is-pp-cli profile list
archive-is-pp-cli profile show <name>
archive-is-pp-cli profile delete <name> --yes

Flag precedence: explicit flag > env var > profile > default.

--deliver

Route command output to a sink other than stdout. Useful when an agent needs to hand a result to a file, a webhook, or another process without plumbing.

bash

archive-is-pp-cli <command> --deliver file:/path/to/out.json
archive-is-pp-cli <command> --deliver webhook:https://hooks.example/in

File sinks write atomically (tmp + rename). Webhook sinks POST

application/json

(or

application/x-ndjson

when

--compact

is set). Unknown schemes produce a structured refusal listing the supported set.

feedback

Record in-band feedback about this CLI from the agent side of the loop. Local-only by default; safe to call without configuration.

bash

archive-is-pp-cli feedback "what surprised you or tripped you up"
archive-is-pp-cli feedback list         # show local entries
archive-is-pp-cli feedback clear --yes  # wipe

Entries append to

~/.archive-is-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl

as JSON lines. When

ARCHIVE_IS_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT

is set and either

--send

is passed or

ARCHIVE_IS_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true

, the entry is also POSTed upstream (non-blocking — local write always succeeds).

pp-archive-is

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

archive.today — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

When to Use This CLI

Unique Capabilities

The hero commands

Durability operations

Observability

Command Reference

Recipes

Read a paywalled article

Preserve a URL before it changes

Bulk archive a research batch

Wayback-preferred for a reliable-read

Auth Setup

Agent Mode

Filtering output

Response envelope

Exit Codes

Installation

MCP Server

Argument Parsing

Agent Workflow Features

Named profiles

--deliver

feedback