pp-fred

FRED — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the fred-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 fred --cli-only
   

2. Verify: fred-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 1.26.5 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/other/fred/cmd/fred-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.

Search and pull U.S. and global economic time series from the St. Louis Fed's FRED API. Beyond mirroring every endpoint, it adds a macro dashboard, multi-series compare, a latest-value shortcut, a persistent watchlist that reports what changed, and a release calendar — all agent-native with --json and --select.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI when an agent or analyst needs U.S. or global macroeconomic time series — unemployment, inflation, GDP, interest rates, and tens of thousands more — programmatically. It is ideal for fetching current indicator values, pulling historical series for analysis, comparing indicators, and tracking a watchlist over time.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Company financials or stock prices — use an equities/SEC tool.
• FRED's GeoFRED/Maps regional-choropleth API — this CLI covers the core time-series API.
• Writing or publishing data — FRED is read-only.

Unique Capabilities

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

Aggregation only we do

• dashboard — Latest value of a curated set of headline U.S. indicators (unemployment, CPI, GDP, fed funds, 10Y, payrolls) in one call.

  Reach for this when an agent needs a quick read on the U.S. economy without choosing and fetching individual series IDs.

  fred-pp-cli dashboard --json
  

• series compare — Pull observations for multiple series and align them by date into one table or JSON for correlation.

  Use when comparing or correlating two or more indicators over the same window.

  fred-pp-cli series compare UNRATE CPIAUCSL --start 2020-01-01 --json
  

Agent-native shortcuts

• series latest — The single most recent observation (date + value) for a series, as a one-liner.

  Use when you only need the current print of an indicator, not its history.

  fred-pp-cli series latest UNRATE --json
  

Local state that compounds

• watchlist sync — Persist a set of series locally, sync their latest observations into SQLite, and report which ones moved since the last sync.

  Use to track a personal set of indicators and surface only the ones that changed.

  fred-pp-cli watchlist sync --json
  

• release calendar — Recent and upcoming economic data release dates within a day window, aggregated across all releases.

  Use to see what economic data is dropping soon without scanning hundreds of releases.

  fred-pp-cli release calendar --days 7 --json
  

Command Reference

category — Browse the FRED category tree

• fred-pp-cli category children — List child categories under a category
• fred-pp-cli category get — Get a category by ID (root category is 0)
• fred-pp-cli category related — List categories related to a category
• fred-pp-cli category series — List the series within a category
• fred-pp-cli category tags — List tags for the series in a category

release — Data releases and their schedules

• fred-pp-cli release dates — List release dates for all releases (the economic release calendar)
• fred-pp-cli release get — Get a single release by ID
• fred-pp-cli release list — List all data releases on FRED
• fred-pp-cli release release-dates — List release dates for a single release
• fred-pp-cli release series — List the series in a release
• fred-pp-cli release sources — List the sources for a release

series — Economic data series — search, metadata, and observations

• fred-pp-cli series categories — List the categories a series belongs to
• fred-pp-cli series get — Get metadata for a single series by ID (e.g. UNRATE, GDP, CPIAUCSL)
• fred-pp-cli series observations — Pull the observation values (the actual time series) for a series
• fred-pp-cli series release — Get the release that a series belongs to
• fred-pp-cli series search — Search for series by full-text query (e.g. 'unemployment rate')
• fred-pp-cli series tags — List FRED tags attached to a series
• fred-pp-cli series updates — List series recently updated on FRED
• fred-pp-cli series vintagedates — List real-time vintage dates for a series (when data was revised)

source — Sources of economic data

• fred-pp-cli source get — Get a single source by ID
• fred-pp-cli source list — List all sources of economic data on FRED
• fred-pp-cli source releases — List the releases for a source

tags — Discover series via FRED tags

• fred-pp-cli tags list — List FRED tags, optionally filtered
• fred-pp-cli tags related — List tags related to a set of tags
• fred-pp-cli tags series — List series matching a set of tags

Finding the right command

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

fred-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

Current unemployment rate

fred-pp-cli series latest UNRATE --json

One-liner for the most recent print of any indicator.

Year-over-year CPI inflation

fred-pp-cli series observations CPIAUCSL --units pc1 --sort-order desc --limit 12 --json --select observations.date,observations.value

Uses FRED's pc1 transform for YoY percent change and --select to trim the payload.

Compare unemployment and inflation

fred-pp-cli series compare UNRATE CPIAUCSL --start 2020-01-01 --json

Aligns multiple series by date into one structure for correlation.

This week's data releases

fred-pp-cli release calendar --days 7 --json

Windowed view of upcoming and recent economic releases.

Auth Setup

Run fred-pp-cli auth setup to print the URL and steps for getting a key (add --launch to open the URL). Then set:

export FRED_API_KEY="<your-key>"

Or persist it in ~/.config/fred-pp-cli/config.toml.

Run fred-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:

  fred-pp-cli category get 0 --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.

Agent Feedback

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

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

Entries are stored locally at ~/.local/share/fred-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless FRED_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or FRED_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:

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.

fred-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
fred-pp-cli --profile briefing category get 0
fred-pp-cli profile list --json
fred-pp-cli profile show briefing
fred-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

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

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

MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP server:

   go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/other/fred/cmd/fred-pp-mcp@latest
   

2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add fred-pp-mcp -- fred-pp-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which fred-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
2. Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.
3. Execute with the --agent flag:

   fred-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent
   

4. If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: fred-pp-cli <command> --help.