pirateskills

Pirate Skills from your terminal – and from any agent, script or cloud session that can run a command.

Pirate Skills is growth marketing and vibe coding for founders and marketers, from Cologne: free events, the Growth Codex and the Builder Codex, two monthly passes and a live cohort with Ben Sufiani. This CLI talks to the same agent door as our MCP server and HTTP API, so anything an AI assistant can do for you there, a script can do here.

• No dependencies, about 28 kB installed
• Node.js 18 or newer
• MIT licensed

Install

npm install -g pirateskills

Or run a single command without installing:

npx -y pirateskills events --limit 3

Quick start

pirateskills events                       # upcoming events, soonest first – no key needed
pirateskills search "activation metrics"  # search the Growth Codex, the Builder Codex and Insights
pirateskills offers                       # what is for sale, with live prices

pirateskills login                        # save your API key
pirateskills wallet                       # your gold, emerald and diamond balances
pirateskills register <event-id>          # register for a free event (asks y/N first)

Commands

| Command | What it does | Needs a key | |---|---|---| | pirateskills events [--type "Pirate Lab"] [--limit 10] | Upcoming events, soonest first, with their ids | no | | pirateskills offers | What is for sale, with live prices | no | | pirateskills search <query> [--limit 5] | Search the Growth Codex, the Builder Codex and Insights | no | | pirateskills tools | Every tool the door offers you, with its input | no | | pirateskills login | Check an API key and save it | – | | pirateskills logout | Forget the saved key | – | | pirateskills whoami | Who the key belongs to | yes | | pirateskills wallet [--limit 10] | Gold, emerald and diamond balances and recent history | yes | | pirateskills access | What you have unlocked | yes | | pirateskills register <event-id> [--yes] | Register for a free event | yes | | pirateskills checkout <offer-key> [--quantity 3] [--currency eur\|usd] [--yes] | A Stripe checkout link – never a charge; you pay on Stripe's page | yes | | pirateskills run <tool> --json '{...}' [--yes] | Run any tool the door offers, with its input as JSON | depends on the tool |

pirateskills --help prints the same list.

Flags

| Flag | Meaning | |---|---| | --yes, -y | Skip the y/N question before a tool that changes something | | --raw | Print the JSON answer instead of the short summary | | --base-url <url> | Talk to another site, e.g. http://localhost:3333 – https only, except for this machine | | --version | Print the version |

API keys

Public commands (events, offers, search, tools) work without a key and are free. Everything about you needs an API key:

1. Sign in at pirateskills.com and open Settings → Manage account → API keys.
2. Add a key with a name you will recognise and an expiry. Copy it – it is shown once.
3. Run pirateskills login and paste it, or set PIRATESKILLS_API_KEY in the environment.

Each signed-in tool call costs one gold from your wallet, so what your scripts and agents did shows in your wallet history. A command that changes something asks y/N first; --yes skips the question for scripts.

Where the key is stored

One JSON file, readable only by you (mode 600):

| System | Path | |---|---| | macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/pirateskills/config.json | | Linux | $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/pirateskills/config.json (default ~/.config) | | Windows | %APPDATA%\pirateskills\config.json |

Where the key is sent

Only to pirateskills.com and to this machine (localhost). Pointed at any other address with --base-url or PIRATESKILLS_API_URL, the CLI runs signed out and says so, and login refuses – so a command copied from a page you read cannot hand your key to someone else. To use your key with another host you trust, name it in PIRATESKILLS_TRUSTED_HOST. Plain http:// is refused except for localhost.

Environment variables

| Variable | Meaning | |---|---| | PIRATESKILLS_API_KEY | Your API key; wins over the saved one, so cloud sessions and CI never need login | | PIRATESKILLS_API_URL | Another site to talk to, like --base-url | | PIRATESKILLS_TRUSTED_HOST | Another host your key may be sent to, e.g. a preview address; comma-separated | | PIRATESKILLS_CONFIG_DIR | Where to keep the config file instead of the default above |

Exit codes

| Code | Meaning | |---|---| | 0 | Done | | 1 | The tool or the request failed | | 2 | Wrong usage – a missing argument or an unknown flag | | 3 | No key, or the key is invalid, expired or revoked | | 4 | Your wallet has no gold left; nothing ran | | 5 | Too many requests from your address this minute; wait and retry |

For agents and scripts

# Machine-readable output for any command
pirateskills events --limit 5 --raw

# Run a tool directly; --yes because nobody is there to answer y/N
PIRATESKILLS_API_KEY=... pirateskills run register_for_event --json '{"eventId":"2026_10_21_builder_lab"}' --yes

Agents that speak MCP can skip the CLI and connect to https://pirateskills.com/mcp directly – step by step for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Codex at pirateskills.com/agents.

What it touches

• Network: only the Pirate Skills site you point it at (https://pirateskills.com by default).
• Disk: only its own config file, above.
• Nothing else: no shell commands, no telemetry, no dependencies.

Versions

Within 1.x we only add – new commands, new fields – and never remove or change what is there. The HTTP API behind it follows the same rule: a version is retired only after at least 90 days' notice (details).

More

• Every tool and its input: https://pirateskills.com/docs/tools
• Authentication for agents: https://pirateskills.com/auth.md
• The API description: https://pirateskills.com/openapi.json

Made by Pirate Skills GmbH, Cologne – contact.