Agent skill · data analytics · mvanhorn
pp-substack-reader
Read any Substack publication as a local, full-text-searchable corpus — keyless for free posts, your own session for what you subscribe to. Trigger phrases: `archive this Substack`, `read this Substack post`, `search my Substack corpus`, `what's new in my newsletters`, `use substack-reader`, `run substack`.
Why this skill is useful
Adds a unique CLI tool for archiving and querying Substack publications, enabling offline access and analytics that the AI wouldn't generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires substack-reader-pp-cli installed locally. About 11k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-06. 1,890 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Substack Reader — Printing Press CLI Prerequisites: Install the CLI This skill drives the substack-reader-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: substack-reader-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. Substack Reader archives whole publications into a local SQLite mirror you can search, SQL-query, and read offline. Free posts need no login; paid posts you're entitled to unlock with your own session cookie — never redistributed, always opt-in. Unlike every other Substack tool it builds a corpus that compounds instead of fetching live per call. When to Use This CLI Use Substack Reader when you want a durable, searchable local copy of one or more Substack publications for reading, agent workflows, or analysis — especially reading a specific post's full text or searching across newsletters offline. It is the right tool when you value a corpus that compounds over live per-call fetching. Anti-triggers Do not use this CLI for: Do not use it to publish, schedule, or manage a Substack you own (this is read-only) — use the Substack web app or a publishing tool. Do not use it to bulk-scrape or redistribute paid content you are not entitled to — it reads only your own entitled content, on demand. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills mvanhorn/substack-reader