Food52 — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the
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 food52 --cli-only
- Verify:
- Ensure (or ) is on .
If the
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/food-and-dining/food52/cmd/food52-pp-cli@latest
If
reports "command not found" after install, the install step did not put the binary on
. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.
When to Use This CLI
Reach for this CLI when an agent needs Food52-quality recipes (community-curated, editor-tested) without rendering a browser or scraping HTML. The pantry match and offline FTS commands turn it into an edit-friendly cookbook the agent can keep on disk between sessions. Use the live
for one-off lookups; sync + offline
for repeated queries against the same recipes.
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.
Local state that compounds
-
— Find Food52 recipes whose ingredients overlap your local pantry, ranked by coverage.
Reach for this when the user asks 'what can I make with what I have' rather than searching for one dish at a time.
bash
food52-pp-cli pantry match --min-coverage 0.7 --json
-
— Full-text search across every recipe and article you have synced, with type filtering.
Use this for lookups that can't justify a Typesense round trip or when offline.
bash
food52-pp-cli search "miso" --type recipe --json
-
— Pull recipes for one or more tags into the local FTS-indexed store.
Run before pantry match or offline search to seed the local cookbook.
bash
food52-pp-cli sync recipes chicken vegetarian --limit 100
-
— Find synced articles that mention a given recipe in their relatedReading.
Use when the user wants the editorial context behind a recipe they've found.
bash
food52-pp-cli articles for-recipe sarah-fennel-s-best-lunch-lady-brownie-recipe
Editorial signals others ignore
-
— Show only Food52 Test-Kitchen-approved recipes for a tag, with a rating floor.
Pick this over a broad search when the user wants 'a recipe Food52's editors signed off on,' not just any community recipe.
bash
food52-pp-cli recipes top chicken --min-rating 4 --limit 5 --json
Recipe transforms
-
— Scale a recipe's ingredients to a different number of servings using its Schema.org recipeYield.
Use when the user is cooking for a different headcount than the recipe's default yield.
bash
food52-pp-cli scale mom-s-japanese-curry-chicken-with-radish-and-cauliflower --servings 8 --json
-
— Render a recipe as ingredients + numbered steps with no nav, no images, no ads, no comments — ready to pipe to lp or paste into notes.
Use when the user wants to actually cook from the recipe rather than browse it.
bash
food52-pp-cli print sarah-fennel-s-best-lunch-lady-brownie-recipe
HTTP Transport
This CLI uses Chrome-compatible HTTP transport for browser-facing endpoints. It does not require a resident browser process for normal API calls.
Discovery Signals
This CLI was generated with browser-observed traffic context.
- Capture coverage: 0 API entries from 0 total network entries
- Protocols: ssr_embedded_data (100% confidence), next_data_json (100% confidence), rest_json (100% confidence), schema_org_jsonld (100% confidence)
- Auth signals: none
- Generation hints: browser_http_transport
- Candidate command ideas: recipes search; recipes browse; recipes get; tags list; verticals list; articles browse; articles get
- Caveats: scope_note: Hotline (/hotline, /hotline/questions/<topic>) returns only siteSettings in pageProps and renders no question/answer data in the DOM. The community Q&A is effectively unreachable for unauthenticated read scrapers. Excluded from CLI scope.; scope_note: Shop endpoints exist on shop.food52.com and food52.myshopify.com/api/2025-01/graphql.json but require Shopify Storefront API token discovery; deferred from v1.; scope_note: buildId (Pq8fQj0nm7uTx90i5u0si at the time of browser-sniff) and _app.js bundle hash change on every Food52 deploy. The CLI's runtime discovery (buildId from NEXT_DATA.buildId, key from regex over the active _app-<hash>.js) handles rotation transparently.; scope_note: Typesense /collections endpoint requires the admin key (search-only key returns 403 there). The CLI does not list collections; it queries the known collection name 'recipes_production_food52_current' directly.
Command Reference
articles — Browse and read Food52 stories (articles) from the food and life verticals
food52-pp-cli articles browse
— Browse the latest Food52 articles in a vertical (food, life)
food52-pp-cli articles get
— Get a Food52 article (story) by slug
recipes — Browse Food52 recipes by tag and fetch single recipe details (extracted from Next.js NEXT_DATA embedded in SSR HTML)
food52-pp-cli recipes browse
— Browse Food52 recipes filtered by a tag (e.g. chicken, breakfast, vegetarian)
food52-pp-cli recipes get
— Get full structured details for a single Food52 recipe by slug
Hand-written commands
food52-pp-cli recipes search <query>
— Search Food52 recipes via Typesense (host + search-only key auto-discovered from the public JS bundle)
food52-pp-cli recipes top <tag>
— Show only Test-Kitchen-approved recipes for a tag, with an optional rating floor (--min-rating)
food52-pp-cli articles browse-sub <vertical> <subvertical>
— Browse a Food52 article subvertical (e.g. food baking, food drinks, life travel)
food52-pp-cli articles for-recipe <slug>
— Find synced articles whose relatedReading mentions the given recipe slug
- — List Food52 recipe tags discovered from the homepage navigation (chicken, breakfast, vegetarian, dessert, pasta, ...)
food52-pp-cli sync recipes <tag> [<tag>...]
— Pull recipes for one or more tags into the local FTS-indexed store
food52-pp-cli sync articles <vertical> [<subvertical>]
— Pull article listings for a vertical (or subvertical) into the local store
food52-pp-cli search <query>
— Search the local store across recipes and articles (FTS5, offline)
food52-pp-cli pantry add <ingredient> [<ingredient>...]
— Add ingredients to your local pantry
food52-pp-cli pantry list
— Show your local pantry
food52-pp-cli pantry remove <ingredient>
— Remove an ingredient from your pantry
food52-pp-cli pantry match
— Find synced recipes whose ingredients match (or mostly match) your pantry
food52-pp-cli scale <slug-or-url>
— Scale a recipe's ingredients to a different number of servings (parses recipeYield from the recipe's JSON-LD)
food52-pp-cli print <slug-or-url>
— Print a clean cooking-friendly view of a recipe (ingredients + numbered steps, no nav, no images, ready to paste or...
food52-pp-cli open <slug-or-url>
— Print a Food52 recipe or article URL; pass --launch to actually open it in the default browser
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
bash
food52-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"
resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code
means at least one match; exit code
means no confident match — fall back to
or use a narrower query.
Recipes
Find a TK-approved chicken recipe under 5 ingredients
bash
food52-pp-cli recipes search chicken --tag 5-ingredients-or-fewer --json --select 'hits.document.title,hits.document.slug,hits.document.testKitchenApproved'
Typesense search filtered by tag, projecting just the fields an agent needs to pick a recipe.
Get the full recipe in JSON for downstream meal planning
bash
food52-pp-cli recipes get mom-s-japanese-curry-chicken-with-radish-and-cauliflower --json --select 'recipe.title,recipe.recipeDetails.ingredients,recipe.recipeDetails.instructions,recipe.averageRating'
Pulls structured ingredients + steps for piping into a meal planner or shopping list builder.
Build an offline weeknight cookbook in one shot
bash
food52-pp-cli sync recipes weeknight quick-and-easy 30-minutes-or-fewer && food52-pp-cli search 'weeknight' --json
Pulls three high-signal tags into the local store, then queries via FTS5 — works on a plane.
What can I make right now?
bash
food52-pp-cli pantry match --min-coverage 0.6 --json --select 'matches.title,matches.coverage,matches.missing_ingredients'
Joins your local pantry against every synced recipe, returning the ones you can mostly make.
Auth Setup
No authentication required.
Agent Mode
Add
to any command. Expands to:
--json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes
.
-
Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
-
Filterable —
keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:
bash
food52-pp-cli articles get best-mothers-day-gift-ideas --agent --select id,name,status
-
Previewable —
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:
json
{
"meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
"results": <data>
}
Parse
for data and
to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable
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:
food52-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
food52-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
food52-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at
~/.food52-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl
. They are never POSTed unless
is set AND either
is passed or
FOOD52_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
. 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 |
|---|
| Default; write to stdout only |
| Atomically write output to (tmp + rename) |
| POST the output body to the URL ( or when ) |
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.
food52-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
food52-pp-cli --profile briefing articles get best-mothers-day-gift-ideas
food52-pp-cli profile list --json
food52-pp-cli profile show briefing
food52-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes
Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults.
lists all available profiles under
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
- Empty, , or → show output
- Starts with → ends with → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
- Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with )
MCP Server Installation
- Install the MCP server:
bash
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/food-and-dining/food52/cmd/food52-pp-mcp@latest
- Register with Claude Code:
bash
claude mcp add food52-pp-mcp -- food52-pp-mcp
- Verify:
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
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 flag:
bash
food52-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
- If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
food52-pp-cli <command> --help
.