Productivity

Human-Goat

human-goat-pp-cli

Hire real humans from the terminal — autonomous TaskRabbit checkout with a verified undo, plus Magic remote errands, in one agent-native binary.

Printed by @mvanhorn (Matt Van Horn)

Install

npx — recommended

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install human-goat

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-human-goat --force

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

OpenClaw

Install the pp-human-goat skill from https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/tree/main/cli-skills/pp-human-goat. 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 →

Hire real humans from the terminal — autonomous TaskRabbit checkout with a verified undo, plus Magic remote errands, in one agent-native binary.

goat unifies two human networks behind a common task model: TaskRabbit for in-person local labor and Magic for remote errands. Its headline is hands-off checkout on TaskRabbit against the card on file — searched, ranked by honest all-in price and review quality, and booked with no prompt — made safe by a spend cap and a cancel command that verifies the cancellation actually landed.

Authentication

TaskRabbit auth is cookie replay from a logged-in Chrome session: run human-goat-pp-cli auth login --chrome to lift the session + XSRF-TOKEN cookies. Never a programmatic password login (the login form is reCAPTCHA-gated). Magic uses an x-api-key read from $MAGIC_API_KEY or ~/.magic/api_key.

Quick Start

# check both backends and resolve the account metro before doing anything
human-goat-pp-cli doctor --dry-run

# see the task templates available in your metro
human-goat-pp-cli categories list --agent

# find the best-value available Tasker with all-in pricing
human-goat-pp-cli best "help moving" --on saturday --min-rating 4.9 --agent

# render the confirm summary without booking; drop --dry-run to check out for real
human-goat-pp-cli hire "help moving" --on saturday --min-rating 4.9 --max-total 200 --dry-run --lat 47.6062 --lng -122.3321

Unique Features

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

Hands-off hiring

hire — Say the job and the date; goat searches, ranks by review quality and honest all-in price, and checks out against the card on file with no prompt.

Reach for this when the user wants a task done, not a Tasker shortlist to review.
```
human-goat-pp-cli hire "help moving" --on 2026-07-11 --min-rating 4.8 --max-total 200 --agent --lat 47.6062 --lng -122.3321
```
cancel — Cancels a booking and confirms it landed by re-reading status, reporting whether it was inside the free window and any fee.

This is the undo that makes autonomous checkout tolerable; always available after a hire.
```
human-goat-pp-cli cancel task_abc123 --agent
```
hire — Refuses to check out when the computed all-in total exceeds a configurable ceiling, printing the total and the cap.

Use --max-total (or the config default) to cap autonomous spend before any booking is placed.
```
human-goat-pp-cli hire movers --on saturday --min-rating 4.9 --max-total 150 --lat 47.6062 --lng -122.3321
```

Honest pricing

best — Folds TaskRabbit's hidden service (~15%) and trust-and-support (5-15%) fees into the displayed hourly rate, honoring the CA/MA service-fee-only rule.

Every price surface (search, compare, best, hire, spend) shows the real all-in rate, not the teaser.
```
human-goat-pp-cli best "help moving" --on saturday --min-rating 4.9 --agent
```
watch — Polls recommendations for a category and date (optionally a favorite or a rate ceiling) and alerts when a match opens.

Use when nothing good is available now and you want the first qualifying slot.
```
human-goat-pp-cli watch movers --on saturday --max-rate 60
```

One surface, two human networks

dispatch — Routes a plain-language task to Magic (remote-doable) or TaskRabbit (in-person) by task shape, with a --via override.

Say what you want done and let goat pick the human network; force it with --via taskrabbit|magic.
```
human-goat-pp-cli dispatch "call the dentist and reschedule my cleaning"
```
spend — SQL over local booking, invoice, and Magic-task history by category, tasker, source, or month, using true effective all-in $/hr for TaskRabbit.

Answers where the money went across both human networks with fees folded in.
```
human-goat-pp-cli spend --by source --agent
```
status — One list of every in-flight task across TaskRabbit bookings and Magic requests, joined on the common task model and sorted by state.

Use for a cross-source view of everything in flight; use 'tasks list' for TR-only and 'track ' for one Magic request.
```
human-goat-pp-cli status --open --agent
```

Recipes

Autonomous hire with a spend cap

human-goat-pp-cli hire "help moving" --on 2026-07-11 --min-rating 4.8 --max-total 200 --agent --lat 47.6062 --lng -122.3321

Searches, ranks by all-in price x reviews, checks out under the cap, and prints the booking id, Tasker, time, and total with no prompt.

Undo a booking and verify

human-goat-pp-cli cancel task_abc123 --agent

Cancels, re-reads status, and reports cancelled plus whether it was inside the free window and any fee.

Dispatch a remote errand

human-goat-pp-cli call 5209076052 "when does the jewelry store open"

Sends a phone-call task to Magic and returns a request id to track; the answer comes back in the conversation.

Narrow a verbose payload for an agent

human-goat-pp-cli taskers favorites --agent --select items.name,items.all_in_rate,items.rating

Returns only the fields an agent needs from a deeply nested Tasker list instead of the full payload.

Where did the money go

human-goat-pp-cli spend --by source --agent

Splits TaskRabbit vs Magic totals from the local store, with TaskRabbit rows using true all-in effective rate.

Usage

Run human-goat-pp-cli --help for the full command reference and flag list.

Paths & environment variables

This CLI separates local files into four path kinds:

Kind	Contents
`config`	User-editable settings such as `config.toml` and saved profiles
`data`	Durable local data: `credentials.toml`, `data.db`, cookies, browser-session proof files, and other auth sidecars
`state`	Runtime state such as persisted queries, jobs, and `teach.log`
`cache`	Regenerable HTTP/cache files

Each kind resolves independently. The ladder is:

Per-kind env var: HUMAN_GOAT_CONFIG_DIR, HUMAN_GOAT_DATA_DIR, HUMAN_GOAT_STATE_DIR, or HUMAN_GOAT_CACHE_DIR
--home <dir> for this invocation
HUMAN_GOAT_HOME for a flat relocated root
XDG env vars: XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME
Platform defaults matching existing installs

For containers and agent sandboxes, prefer a single relocated root:

export HUMAN_GOAT_HOME=/srv/human-goat
human-goat-pp-cli doctor

Under HUMAN_GOAT_HOME=/srv/human-goat, the four dirs resolve to /srv/human-goat/config, /srv/human-goat/data, /srv/human-goat/state, and /srv/human-goat/cache.

MCP servers do not receive CLI flags from the host. Put relocation in the host env block:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "human-goat": {
      "command": "human-goat-pp-mcp",
      "env": {
        "HUMAN_GOAT_HOME": "/srv/human-goat"
      }
    }
  }
}

Precedence matters in fleets: an ambient per-kind variable such as HUMAN_GOAT_DATA_DIR overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use HUMAN_GOAT_HOME or the per-kind variables for durable fleet relocation; treat --home as the weaker per-invocation lever.

Relocation is one-way. Unsetting HUMAN_GOAT_HOME does not move files back to platform defaults, and doctor cannot find credentials left under a former root. Move the files manually before unsetting relocation variables.

Existing installs keep working because the platform-default rung matches the legacy layout. On the first auth write, stored secrets leave config.toml and are consolidated into credentials.toml under the data directory. Run human-goat-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to check path and credential-location warnings in automation.

Commands

account

The logged-in TaskRabbit client account profile

human-goat-pp-cli account - Get the authenticated account profile

invoices

Invoice and payment-history flags

human-goat-pp-cli invoices - Whether the account has submitted invoices (payment-history presence flag)

system

TaskRabbit account bootstrap, metro, and dashboard reachability

human-goat-pp-cli system bootstrap - Account bootstrap — metro (id, name, country), payment_method_types, stream_api_key. Used by doctor to resolve the account metro.
human-goat-pp-cli system dashboard-counts - Dashboard tab counts (open tasks, messages, etc.)

taskers

Favorite, past, and suggested TaskRabbit Taskers

human-goat-pp-cli taskers favorites - List your favorited Taskers (poster=client, rabbit=tasker)
human-goat-pp-cli taskers past - List Taskers you have hired before
human-goat-pp-cli taskers suggestions - Tasker suggestions for the account metro

Self-learning loop

This CLI caches per-question discovery so repeat queries skip the walk and structurally similar queries get answered via entity substitution. The loop also self-captures: every invocation is journaled locally, and failed-flag corrections plus fresh teaches surface as candidates on the next recall for confirm/reject judgment. Agents call recall before discovery and fire teach & after answering. See the ## Automatic learning section in SKILL.md for the full protocol.

human-goat-pp-cli recall <query> - Look up cached resources for a query before running discovery
human-goat-pp-cli teach - Record a query -> resource mapping (silent on success, safe to background with &)
human-goat-pp-cli learnings list - Inspect taught rows
human-goat-pp-cli learnings forget <query> - Undo a teach
human-goat-pp-cli learnings candidates - List auto-captured candidates awaiting confirm/reject
human-goat-pp-cli learnings stats - Local loop metrics: recall hit rate, teach-to-reuse, playbook resolution, candidate counts
human-goat-pp-cli teach-pattern - Install a query/resource template up front
human-goat-pp-cli teach-lookup - Add an entity mapping (e.g. country code, team alias) for pattern substitution

Pass --no-learn or set HUMAN_GOAT_NO_LEARN=true to disable the loop for deterministic flows.

The local store's schema version stamp is one-way: once this version of human-goat-pp-cli opens the database, older binaries refuse it with a version error — upgrade the binary rather than downgrading.

Output Formats

# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
human-goat-pp-cli account

# JSON for scripting and agents
human-goat-pp-cli account --json

# Filter to specific fields
human-goat-pp-cli account --json --select id,name,status

# Dry run — show the request without sending
human-goat-pp-cli account --dry-run

# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
human-goat-pp-cli account --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
Read-only by default - this CLI does not create, update, delete, publish, send, or mutate remote resources
Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless --human-friendly is set

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

Health Check

human-goat-pp-cli doctor

Verifies configuration, credentials, and connectivity to the API.

Configuration

Run human-goat-pp-cli doctor to see the resolved config, data, state, and cache directories. The platform-default config path is ~/.config/human-goat/config.toml; --home, HUMAN_GOAT_HOME, and per-kind env vars can relocate it.

Static request headers can be configured under headers; per-command header overrides take precedence.

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors (exit code 4)

Run human-goat-pp-cli doctor to check credentials Not found errors (exit code 3)
Check the resource ID is correct
Run the list command to see available items

API-specific

doctor reports TaskRabbit unauthenticated — run human-goat-pp-cli auth login --chrome while logged into taskrabbit.com in Chrome
hire refuses with a spend-cap message — raise --max-total or pick a cheaper Tasker; the printed all-in total exceeded the cap
Magic task shows ONGOING forever — the human's answer arrives in the conversation, not result; read it with track <id> which surfaces the conversation tail