The movie CLI that combines TMDb's discovery engine with OMDb's multi-source ratings — and ships a SQLite watchlist that flags what's streaming on your services right now. Trigger phrases: `what should I watch tonight`, `where can I stream <title>`, `rate <title>`, `compare <title> and <title>`, `what's <person>'s filmography`, `plan a <franchise> marathon`, `use movie-goat`, `run movie-goat`.
The movie CLI that combines TMDb's discovery engine with OMDb's multi-source ratings — and ships a SQLite watchlist that flags what's streaming on your services right now. Trigger phrases: `what should I watch tonight`, `where can I stream <title>`, `rate <title>`, `compare <title> and <title>`, `what's <person>'s filmography`, `plan a <franchise> marathon`, `use movie-goat`, `run movie-goat`.
This skill drives the movie-goat-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:
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):
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/media-and-entertainment/movie-goat/cmd/movie-goat-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 Movie Goat when an agent needs to answer cinephile questions that require combining streaming availability with multi-source ratings. It is the right choice for tonight-picker scenarios, franchise marathon planning, and rated career timelines. It is not the right choice for box-office tracking, review sentiment analysis, or any workflow that needs LLM-style summaries of plot or reviews.
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.
Cinephile rituals
tonight — Pick what to watch tonight from trending titles actually streaming on your services.
Use this when an agent needs a streaming-filtered shortlist; one call replaces tab-bouncing across TMDb/RT/JustWatch.
ratings — TMDb + IMDb + Rotten Tomatoes + Metacritic ratings for any title in one card.
Use when an agent needs the canonical multi-source rating for a title; degrades gracefully to TMDb-only if OMDB_API_KEY is unset.
movie-goat-pp-cli ratings 550 --json
Remake-aware title resolution — Every command that accepts a title instead of a TMDb id says so out loud when the title is shared.
TMDb's search ranks by a proprietary relevance score, so "Sabrina" resolves to the 1995 remake even though the 1954 Wilder original is better rated. When a title has more than one well-rated match, the CLI reports it on both channels: a human notice on stderr, and a meta.ambiguous record in the JSON on stdout for consumers that never read stderr. Pin the one you meant with --year, a "Title (YYYY)" suffix, or the id.
watchlist list — Local SQLite watchlist; flag rows that are streamable on your services.
Use weekly to surface streamable items from a saved list; eliminates ad-hoc JustWatch checks per title.
movie-goat-pp-cli watchlist list --available --providers netflix,max --region US --json
queue — Suggest next-watch picks derived from your watchlist's recommendations and similars.
Use when an agent needs a fresh queue derived from saved interests; combines local state with API recommendations.
movie-goat-pp-cli queue --limit 20 --providers netflix,max --region US --json
Command Reference
discover — Discover movies and TV shows with rich filters
movie-goat-pp-cli discover movies — Discover movies by genre, year, rating, certification, cast, crew, streaming provider, and more
movie-goat-pp-cli discover tv — Discover TV shows by genre, year, rating, network, and streaming provider
genres — Get genre lists for movies and TV
movie-goat-pp-cli genres movies — Get the list of movie genres
movie-goat-pp-cli genres tv — Get the list of TV genres
movies — Search and browse movies
movie-goat-pp-cli movies get — Get detailed info about a movie including cast, ratings, and streaming availability
movie-goat-pp-cli movies now-playing — Get movies currently in theaters
movie-goat-pp-cli movies popular — Get current popular movies
movie-goat-pp-cli movies search — Search for movies by title
movie-goat-pp-cli movies top-rated — Get the highest rated movies
movie-goat-pp-cli movies upcoming — Get movies coming soon to theaters
multi — Multi-search across movies, TV shows, and people
movie-goat-pp-cli multi <query> — Search for movies, TV shows, and people in a single query
people — Search and browse people (actors, directors, crew)
movie-goat-pp-cli people get — Get detailed info about a person including their filmography
movie-goat-pp-cli people popular — Get popular people in entertainment
movie-goat-pp-cli people search — Search for people by name
trending — Get trending movies, TV shows, and people
movie-goat-pp-cli trending all — Get trending movies, TV, and people
movie-goat-pp-cli trending movies — Get trending movies
movie-goat-pp-cli trending people — Get trending people
movie-goat-pp-cli trending tv — Get trending TV shows
tv — Search and browse TV shows
movie-goat-pp-cli tv airing-today — Get TV shows with episodes airing today
movie-goat-pp-cli tv get — Get detailed info about a TV show
movie-goat-pp-cli tv on-the-air — Get TV shows currently on the air
movie-goat-pp-cli tv popular — Get current popular TV shows
movie-goat-pp-cli tv search — Search for TV shows by title
movie-goat-pp-cli tv top-rated — Get the highest rated TV shows
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
movie-goat-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
Tonight, well-rated, on my services
movie-goat-pp-cli tonight --mood drama --max-runtime 130 --providers netflix,max,prime --region US --agent --select"results.title,results.year,results.rating,results.providers"
Streaming-filtered shortlist with only the high-gravity fields an agent needs to decide.
Watchlist sweep
movie-goat-pp-cli watchlist list --available --providers netflix,max --region US --agent
Weekly check: which saved titles became streamable on services I have.
Rated career deep dive
movie-goat-pp-cli career "Lynne Ramsay" --role director --agent --select"credits.title,credits.year,credits.rating_imdb,credits.rating_rt"
Agent-bounded chronological filmography with the cross-source rating columns that matter.
Pick between two finalists
movie-goat-pp-cli versus 27205 87108 --region US --agent
Aligned compare card for Inception vs. Tenet; ratings, runtime, cast overlap, providers.
ratings, marathon, and watchlist add take --year; every title-taking
command (including the two-positional versus) accepts the inline "Title (YYYY)"
suffix. Without either, the CLI still takes TMDb's top-ranked result but prints
the rival ids on stderr:
warn: "Sabrina" matches 3 titles on TMDb; using id 11860 — Sabrina (1995).
TMDb's search relevance put it first, but Sabrina (1954) has more ratings (1373 vs 703).
Other matches:
6620 Sabrina (1954)
503902 Sabrina (2018)
Disambiguate with --year <YYYY>, a "title (YYYY)" suffix, or the TMDb id.
/search/* orders results by a relevance score TMDb does not expose. It is not
the vote count and not the popularity field — in this very case the 1954 entry
leads on both (1373 vs 703 ratings, 4.25 vs 3.60 popularity) and still comes back
second. That is why the top result can differ from the canonical edition, and why
the notice compares vote counts: they are the only ranking input you can read.
Unrated same-title obscurities never trigger it, so ratings "Inception" stays
silent.
A script that never reads stderr still finds out. The same event is recorded
in the JSON response under meta.ambiguous, so a cron job or a pipeline running
with 2>/dev/null — the case where nobody is watching and a wrong year is most
dangerous — can detect it:
[{"query":"Sabrina","kind":"titles","match_count":3,"signal":"alternative_better_rated","chosen":{"tmdb_id":11860,"title":"Sabrina","year":"1995","vote_count":703},"alternatives":[{"tmdb_id":6620,"title":"Sabrina","year":"1954","vote_count":1373},{"tmdb_id":503902,"title":"Sabrina","year":"2018","vote_count":194}],"hint":"Disambiguate with --year <YYYY>, a \"title (YYYY)\" suffix, or the TMDb id."}]
signal is alternative_better_rated when the entry TMDb's search ranked first
is not the best-rated one — treat that as "stop and pin an id" — or
multiple_exact_matches when the top pick is also the best-rated. meta.ambiguous
is a list because one command can resolve several titles (versus resolves two).
popularity is TMDb's trending score, passed through as reported. It is not
the order the results came back in, and it is not what the signal compares —
that is vote_count.
Rules worth knowing:
Additive. The field appears only when the stderr notice fires. Unambiguous
lookups carry no meta key at all, so nothing changes for existing parsers.
--select cannot filter it out.--select title,ratings still returns
meta.ambiguous when a lookup was ambiguous — narrowing the field list is
exactly the habit that would otherwise hide it.
--compact / --agent keep it. The compact allow-list applies to arrays;
these responses are objects, whose compaction is a blocklist that leaves meta
alone.
--quiet silences the stderr notice but not the record. They are separate
channels with separate audiences. Note that on these commands --quiet
suppresses stdout entirely (pre-existing behavior), so use --json without
--quiet to read the field.
Ordered watchlist with total runtime and break suggestions.
Auth Setup
TMDb v3 API key (free, https://www.themoviedb.org/settings/api) is required and goes in TMDB_API_KEY — used as a query parameter, not a Bearer header. OMDb key (free, http://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx) is optional and goes in OMDB_API_KEY; without it, ratings and versus show TMDb-only and gracefully omit the IMDb/RT/Metacritic columns.
Run movie-goat-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:
movie-goat-pp-cli movies get mock-value --agent --selectid,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:
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:
movie-goat-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
movie-goat-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
movie-goat-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.movie-goat-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless MOVIE_GOAT_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or MOVIE_GOAT_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 agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.
movie-goat-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
movie-goat-pp-cli --profile briefing movies get mock-value
movie-goat-pp-cli profile list --json
movie-goat-pp-cli profile show briefing
movie-goat-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 movie-goat-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/media-and-entertainment/movie-goat/cmd/movie-goat-pp-mcp@latest
Register with Claude Code:
claude mcp add -e TMDB_API_KEY=<your-tmdb-key> -e OMDB_API_KEY=<your-omdb-key> movie-goat-pp-mcp -- movie-goat-pp-mcp
OMDB_API_KEY is optional, but it enables IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic enrichment in ratings, versus, and career.
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
Check if installed: which movie-goat-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.
