Pp Medium Reader

<!-- GENERATED FILE — DO NOT EDIT.
     This file is a verbatim mirror of library/media-and-entertainment/medium-reader/SKILL.md,
     regenerated post-merge by tools/generate-skills/. Hand-edits here are
     silently overwritten on the next regen. Edit the library/ source instead.
     See the repository agent guide, section "Generated artifacts: registry.json, cli-skills/". -->

Medium Reader — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the medium-reader-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 medium-reader --cli-only

2. Verify: medium-reader-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). 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/media-and-entertainment/medium-reader/cmd/medium-reader-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.

Medium Reader reads Medium's own public surfaces (RSS, the article page, and the internal GraphQL endpoint) directly — no API key, no proxy. It mirrors authors, publications, and tags into a local SQLite store, so you can archive a writer's entire body of work, search across everything you have synced, and see what is new in a topic — offline, in one command, agent-native.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI when an agent needs to read, archive, search, or analyze Medium content — a specific author's catalog, a publication's articles, a tag's RSS feed, or the full text of an article. It is the right tool when the task is research, monitoring, or building a local corpus of Medium writing. It works with zero credentials.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Do not use to publish, update, clap, comment on, or follow on Medium; this is a read-only reader (Medium's official write API was closed to new integrations in 2025).
• Do not use to bulk-collect or redistribute copyrighted Medium content; this is for personal reading and research of content you have access to.
• Do not use for non-Medium blogs or RSS in general.

Authentication

None required. Every command runs anonymously, with no key and no account ("Tier 0").

There is one optional layer ("Tier 1"): your own Medium session cookie, which can unlock the full body of member-locked articles served on medium.com (anonymously, those return only a short preview). It is your own browser session, never an API key, and is always optional. The reader keeps this cookie on its original site, so an article redirected to a custom publication domain may still return a preview:

export MEDIUM_SESSION="sid=<sid>; uid=<uid>"
# or: medium-reader-pp-cli auth login --cookie-file <path>   (flat JSON {"sid":"..","uid":".."})
# or (opt-in `-tags kooky` build only): medium-reader-pp-cli auth login --chrome --cookie-file <path>

Copy sid/uid from your browser's medium.com cookies (DevTools → Application → Cookies). Run medium-reader-pp-cli auth login to report the current tier (the token is masked). The --chrome auto-extract is a stub in the default binary (it points back to the env/file paths) and only does the real read in an opt-in -tags kooky build. Send only your own cookie, only to Medium.

Core read commands (Tier 0, keyless)

• feed <@user|publication|tag> — Read the public RSS feed for an author (@name), a tag (tag/<name>), or a publication slug.

  medium-reader-pp-cli feed tag/ux --agent

• read <url|id> — Read a single article as Markdown. Member-locked posts return a preview anonymously; a Tier-1 cookie can unlock the full body on medium.com. A redirect to a custom publication domain may still return a preview.

  medium-reader-pp-cli read https://medium.com/p/818e7841df9c --agent

• search <query> --limit N — Search Medium for posts matching a query (via the internal GraphQL endpoint).

  medium-reader-pp-cli search "design systems" --limit 10 --agent

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool — and they run keyless, against your local mirror.

Local corpus that compounds

• author-archive — Mirror a writer's entire body of work into local SQLite, full-text searchable offline. Accepts a 12-hex user id or a @handle/username (resolved keylessly from the public profile page).

  Reach for this when you need a complete, queryable copy of one author's writing rather than the 10-item RSS window or one-article-at-a-time fetches.

  medium-reader-pp-cli author-archive @quincylarson --agent

• corpus — Full-text and regex search across everything you have synced locally (authors, publications, tags).

  Use this to find a half-remembered passage across all the writing you have archived, without touching the network.

  medium-reader-pp-cli corpus "design systems" --agent --select title,author,url

• digest — A deduped, ranked 'what is new since last sync' across the authors, publications, and tags you have archived.

  Use this as a personal what-did-I-miss feed across everything you have synced, computed offline.

  medium-reader-pp-cli digest --since 7d --agent

Comparative analysis

• author-compare — Compare two writers on output cadence, topic mix, and engagement (claps, voters, responses, and reading time per article) from locally archived data. Engagement is keyless/Tier-0, including for member-only posts.

  Use this to weigh two writers or publications before committing to follow or archive one.

  medium-reader-pp-cli author-compare @quincylarson uxdesigncc --agent

HTTP Transport

This CLI uses a Chrome-compatible HTTP transport (browser TLS impersonation) so Medium's public surfaces serve it like a browser — no API key and no resident browser process.

Command Reference

feed — Read a Medium author, publication, or tag RSS feed (no key, no cookies).

• medium-reader-pp-cli feed <@user|publication|tag> — Auto-detects ref kind and returns recent posts from the public RSS feed.

read — Read a Medium article as Markdown (no key, no cookies).

• medium-reader-pp-cli read <url|id> — Renders the article body as Markdown; preview-only for member-locked posts unless a Tier-1 cookie is set.

search — Search Medium for posts matching a query (no key, no cookies).

• medium-reader-pp-cli search <query> --limit N — Returns matching posts (id, title, author, username, published-at).

author-archive — Mirror a writer's entire body of work into local SQLite.

• medium-reader-pp-cli author-archive <userIdOrHandle> --max-articles N — Resolves a handle keylessly, archives the catalog into the local store.

corpus — Full-text and regex search across everything synced locally.

digest — A deduped, ranked 'what is new since last sync' across what you have archived.

author-compare — Compare two writers on cadence, topic mix, and engagement.

analytics — Run analytics queries on locally synced data.

doctor — Check CLI health (Medium reachability, cookie tier, local cache).

auth login — Report or import the optional Tier-1 session cookie.

Finding the right command

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

medium-reader-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.