Agent skill · software engineering · mvanhorn
pp-metacritic
Printing Press CLI for Metacritic. Undocumented internal JSON API powering metacritic.com (a Fandom property).
Why this skill is useful
Adds executable commands for interacting with an undocumented internal API for Metacritic, enabling data retrieval that the AI cannot generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires metacritic-pp-cli installed locally. About 5k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-06. 1,890 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Metacritic — Printing Press CLI Prerequisites: Install the CLI This skill drives the metacritic-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: 2. Verify: metacritic-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 1.26.6 or newer). This installs into $GOPATH/bin (default $HOME/go/bin), so add that directory to $PATH instead: 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. Undocumented internal JSON API powering metacritic.com (a Fandom property). Reverse-engineered from the site's public web client. Every request carries a shared public apiKey that the site embeds in its own JavaScript bundle, so no user credentials are required for read access. One backend (backend.metacritic.com) serves every media type. The mcoTypeId query parameter selects the medium on the browse endpoint: 1 = TV shows, 2 = movies, 13 = games. The {mediaType} path segment (games, movies, shows) selects the medium on the title-detail, filters, and review endpoints. The non-obvious insight: Metacritic is not just a review aggregator, it is a cross-media taste graph. Every gap between a title's Metascore (critics) and user score is a signal about critic-audience divergence. Scope: this spec covers games, movies, and TV shows plus search, filters, title detail, and critic/user reviews. Music (albums) is served through a separate query shape and is intentionally left as a follow-up. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills mvanhorn/metacritic