pp-tripadvisor

Tripadvisor — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the tripadvisor-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 tripadvisor --cli-only
   

2. Verify: tripadvisor-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/travel/tripadvisor/cmd/tripadvisor-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 hotels, restaurants, and attractions and get rating, review count, and ranking up front so an agent can rank and choose. Beyond the raw five endpoints, best and nearby-best search-then-rank in one call, compare puts places side by side, and drift flags a rating that slipped since you last looked — all backed by a local SQLite cache so repeat lookups are free and offline.

When to Use This CLI

Use this CLI when an agent needs to search Tripadvisor places and compare them by rating, review count, or ranking — picking the best hotel/restaurant/attraction in a city or near a point, putting specific options side by side, or pulling a place's details, recent traveler reviews, and photos. The local cache makes repeat comparisons fast and offline.

Anti-triggers

Do not use this CLI for:

• Do not use this CLI to book hotels, tables, or tours — the Content API is read-only and this tool performs no bookings.
• Do not use it to fetch full review histories; the free Content API returns at most 5 recent reviews per location.
• Do not use it to scrape tripadvisor.com directly; that is bot-protected and out of scope.
• Do not use it to summarize or judge review sentiment; it returns the raw user-generated text for the agent to interpret.

Unique Capabilities

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

Compare options

• best — Search a place type, auto-fetch details for the top hits, and return them ranked by rating, review count, or Tripadvisor ranking in one table.

  Reach for this when the task is 'find the best X in Y' instead of calling find then show ten times yourself.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli best "Paris" --category hotels --top 5 --sort rating --agent
  

• compare — Pull details (and subratings + trip-type mix) for 2-5 location IDs and emit one structured comparison table.

  Reach for this to decide between specific places an agent already shortlisted.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli compare 93450 258705 1641927 --agent
  

• nearby-best — From a lat/long, find nearby places, batch-fetch details up to a scan cap, filter by category and minimum rating, return the top K.

  Reach for this for 'best-rated near here' from coordinates.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli nearby-best "48.8606,2.3376" --category restaurants --min-rating 4.0 --top 5 --agent
  

• fit — Rank search results by how well their trip-type mix matches a declared traveler profile (families, couples, solo, business).

  Reach for this to bias a shortlist toward who is actually traveling.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli fit "Orlando" --category hotels --traveler families --top 5 --agent
  

Local state that compounds

• drift — Compare a location's stored rating/review-count snapshot against a fresh fetch and report the delta, flagging drops past a threshold.

  Reach for this to detect whether a place you tracked has slipped since you last checked.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli drift 93450 --threshold 0.2 --agent
  

Agent-native plumbing

• digest — One location ID to a single agent-friendly payload combining details, top reviews (user-generated), and photo URLs.

  Reach for this when you need the full picture of one place without three round trips.

  tripadvisor-pp-cli digest 93450 --reviews 3 --agent
  

Command Reference

find — Search Tripadvisor for hotels, restaurants, attractions, or geos by name

• tripadvisor-pp-cli find <searchQuery> — Search locations by name. Returns location_id + name + address you can pass to show/reviews/photos.

near — Find Tripadvisor locations near a lat/long point

• tripadvisor-pp-cli near <latLong> — Find locations near 'lat,long'. Returns location_id + name + address.

photos — List photo URLs for a location (thumbnail/medium/large/original sizes)

• tripadvisor-pp-cli photos <locationId> — Photos for a location_id with thumbnail/medium/large/original URLs. Content API caps at 5.

reviews — List recent traveler reviews for a location (user-generated content; Content API returns up to 5)

• tripadvisor-pp-cli reviews <locationId> — Recent reviews for a location_id.

show — Show full details for a location: rating, review count, ranking, address, hours, price level, awards

• tripadvisor-pp-cli show <locationId> — Full details for one location_id. Leads with rating, num_reviews, and ranking so agents can compare options.

Finding the right command

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

tripadvisor-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

Best-rated restaurants in a city

tripadvisor-pp-cli best "Lisbon" --category restaurants --top 5 --sort rating --agent

Searches, auto-fetches details for the top hits, and returns them ranked by rating with review counts.

Decide between two hotels

tripadvisor-pp-cli compare 93450 258705 --agent --select name,rating,num_reviews,ranking

Pulls both detail records and narrows the comparison to the fields that drive the choice.

Best near a coordinate

tripadvisor-pp-cli nearby-best "48.8606,2.3376" --category attractions --min-rating 4.5 --top 5 --agent

Finds nearby attractions, ranks the highly-rated ones, all from a lat/long.

Has this place slipped?

tripadvisor-pp-cli drift 93450 --threshold 0.2 --agent

Compares the cached rating snapshot against a fresh fetch and flags a meaningful drop.

One-call full picture

tripadvisor-pp-cli digest 93450 --reviews 3 --agent --select name,rating,reviews

Combines details, recent reviews, and photos in a single payload narrowed to what you need.

Auth Setup

Uses an official Tripadvisor Content API key passed as the key query parameter (set TRIPADVISOR_API_KEY). Create a key at tripadvisor.com/developers; you must add an IP restriction (your public IPv4 as a /32) or a domain restriction before the key is shown. Domain-restricted keys also require a Referer header on every request.

Run tripadvisor-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:

  tripadvisor-pp-cli find mock-value --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:

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

Entries are stored locally at ~/.local/share/tripadvisor-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless TRIPADVISOR_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or TRIPADVISOR_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.

tripadvisor-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
tripadvisor-pp-cli --profile briefing find mock-value
tripadvisor-pp-cli profile list --json
tripadvisor-pp-cli profile show briefing
tripadvisor-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 tripadvisor-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/travel/tripadvisor/cmd/tripadvisor-pp-mcp@latest
   

2. Register with Claude Code:

   claude mcp add tripadvisor-pp-mcp -- tripadvisor-pp-mcp
   

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

1. Check if installed: which tripadvisor-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:

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

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