Commerce

eBay

pp-ebay

Buyer-power-user CLI for eBay. Sold-comp intelligence, true sniper bidding, watchlist intelligence, saved-search feeds, and a local SQLite store for cross-listing analytics.

Printed by @mvanhorn (Matt Van Horn)

Install

npx — recommended

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install ebay

Installs the CLI binary and the agent skill (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, and more). Add --cli-only or --skill-only for one half. Requires Node.

Hermes

hermes skills install mvanhorn/printing-press-library/cli-skills/pp-ebay --force

From the Hermes CLI. Inside a chat session use /skills install with the same path.

OpenClaw

Install the pp-ebay skill from https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/tree/main/cli-skills/pp-ebay. The skill defines how its required CLI can be installed.

Paste this to your OpenClaw agent — the skill describes how to install its CLI.

Claude Desktop

This CLI ships an MCPB bundle. Download the latest release .mcpb and double-click it — Claude Desktop walks you through the install.

View source on GitHub →

Discover, monitor, and analyze eBay listings, auctions, and sold comps from the terminal.

The killer feature is auctions filtered by bid count and ending window — the query the eBay site can no longer answer since the Finding API was retired in February 2025. Pair it with sold-comp pricing intelligence, watchlists, and saved searches.

Learn more at eBay.

What this CLI does well

auctions — Search active auctions filtered by bid count and ending window. "Steph Curry rookies with at least 3 bids ending in the next hour" is a single command.
comp — Sold-comp pricing intelligence over the last 90 days with smart matching, condition normalization, 1.5x IQR outlier trim, and percentile distribution.
sold — Search sold completed listings by keyword.
listings — Search active listings (auctions, Buy It Now, or both) with price and condition filters.
watch — Inspect your watchlist (authenticated, read-only).
saved-search — Local saved-search CRUD for repeatable queries.
feed — Stream new listings matching a saved search, with sold-comp context appended.
Local SQLite store — sync data once, run search queries offline.

See Known Limitations for what doesn't work today.

ebay-pp-cli discovery flow

Quick Start

1. Authenticate

This CLI uses your Chrome browser session for authentication. Log in to eBay in Chrome, then:

ebay-pp-cli auth login --chrome

It needs a cookie extraction tool. Install one:

pip install pycookiecheat                # Python (recommended)
brew install barnardb/cookies/cookies    # Homebrew

When your session expires, run auth login --chrome (or auth refresh) again.

2. Verify Setup

ebay-pp-cli doctor

3. Run the killer commands

# The query the eBay site can't answer: bid-filtered, ending-soon auctions
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Steph Curry rookie" --has-bids --ending-within 1h

# Sold-comp pricing: what did this card actually go for in the last 90 days?
ebay-pp-cli comp "Cooper Flagg /50 Topps Chrome" --trim

# Active Buy It Now listings under $30
ebay-pp-cli listings --nkw "PSA Mariners Griffey" --lh-bin 1 --udlo 10 --udhi 30

# Pipe and filter for agents
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Rolex" --has-bids --ending-within 30m --agent --select item_id,price,bids,time_left

Cookbook

Real workflows the CLI exists for.

# Comp before bidding: should I pay $X for this card?
ebay-pp-cli comp "PSA 10 Pikachu illustrator" --trim --json --select mean,median,p25,p75,sample_size

# Find under-priced auctions ending soon
ebay-pp-cli auctions "vintage Rolex Submariner" --has-bids --ending-within 2h --max-price 5000 --json | \
  jq '.[] | select(.price < 3000) | {item_id, price, bids, time_left, url}'

# Cross-condition comparison: how do graded vs raw cards sell?
ebay-pp-cli comp "Zion Williamson rookie" --condition raw --json
ebay-pp-cli comp "Zion Williamson rookie" --condition graded --json

# Find vintage cards with active bidding
ebay-pp-cli auctions "PSA Mariners 1980" --has-bids --max-price 30 --json | \
  jq '.[] | {title, price, bids, ends_at, url}'

# Save a search and re-run it
ebay-pp-cli saved-search create vintage-mariners --query "PSA Mariners Griffey" --max-price 30
ebay-pp-cli feed vintage-mariners --since 1h

Known Limitations

Be honest with yourself before depending on this tool.

Bid placement is experimental and currently fails

bid, snipe, and bid-group are wired up but cannot complete a bid end-to-end. eBay's /bfl/placebid/<id> endpoint redirects browser-cookie sessions to sign-in (step-up auth), even with cookies that pass the /deals validation handshake. The three-step flow (bid module → bid trisk → bid confirm) cannot extract the srt token because eBay never serves the bid module HTML to non-browser sessions.

These commands are hidden from --help and print a warning when invoked directly. They stay in the binary so a future browser-CDP rewrite (routing bid traffic through the user's actual Chrome process) can revive them. Until then, bid in the browser.

Rate limiting under sustained use

eBay's Akamai bot manager throttles the CLI's IP under sustained scraping. Symptoms: discovery commands start returning empty results, or you see HTTP 403 in --dry-run-style debug output. Recovery:

ebay-pp-cli auth refresh

…opens Chrome to clear any challenge wall, then re-imports cookies. Backing off for ~15-30 minutes also helps.

Other gaps

Watchlist write paths, bid groups, saved-search CRUD, feed, and offer-hunter ship as honest "not yet implemented" stubs that print their planned shape. The infrastructure (HTML scraper, local SQLite store) is fully built; only the per-command glue is deferred.
comp image <path> (search-by-image against sold comps) requires EBAY_APP_ID for Browse.searchByImage. Without an App ID, the command exits with a clear "requires App OAuth" message rather than failing silently.
Forter token TTL is unknown for the bid flow. Moot until bid placement is rewritten.

Usage

Run ebay-pp-cli --help for the full command reference. Hidden experimental commands (bid, snipe, bid-group) can be reached by name (e.g. ebay-pp-cli snipe --help) but are not listed in the default help output.

Output Formats

# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Griffey rookie" --has-bids

# JSON for scripting and agents
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Griffey rookie" --has-bids --json

# Filter to specific fields
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Griffey rookie" --has-bids --json --select item_id,price,bids,time_left

# Dry run — show the request without sending
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Griffey rookie" --dry-run

# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
ebay-pp-cli auctions "Griffey rookie" --agent

Agent Usage

This CLI is designed for AI agent consumption:

Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag
Pipeable - --json output to stdout, errors to stderr
Filterable - --select id,name returns only fields you need
Previewable - --dry-run shows the request without sending
Confirmable - --yes for explicit confirmation of destructive actions
Offline-friendly - sync/search commands use the local SQLite store when available
Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless --human-friendly is set
Self-describing - agent-context emits a JSON description of the CLI's current capabilities, including which commands are experimental

Exit codes: 0 success, 2 usage error, 3 not found, 4 auth error, 5 API error, 7 rate limited, 10 config error.

Health Check

ebay-pp-cli doctor

Verifies configuration, credentials, and connectivity.

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/ebay-pp-cli/config.toml

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors (exit code 4)

Run ebay-pp-cli doctor to check credentials
Run ebay-pp-cli auth refresh to re-import Chrome cookies

Empty discovery results

Likely rate limiting; see Known Limitations

Not found errors (exit code 3)

Check the resource ID is correct
Run the relevant list command to see available items

HTTP Transport

This CLI uses Chrome-compatible HTTP transport (TLS fingerprint impersonation via surf) for browser-facing endpoints. It does not require a resident browser process for discovery commands.

Generated by CLI Printing Press, then hand-edited 2026-04-30 for capability honesty.