pp-synology

Synology — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the synology-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows:
```
npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install synology --cli-only
```
Verify: synology-pp-cli --version
Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.

If the npx install fails before this CLI has a public-library category, install Node or use the category-specific Go fallback after publish.

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.

DSM's WebAPI is namespaced RPC that answers HTTP 200 even when it fails, and its available namespaces differ per NAS depending on which packages are installed. This CLI handles the dialect for you: expired sessions renew themselves, DSM error codes become actionable messages, and 'session apis' tells you what your own NAS actually exposes. Everything is JSON-first, so '--agent' output pipes straight into jq or an agent's context.

When Not to Use This CLI

Do not activate this CLI to create, modify or delete users, groups, shared folders, NFS permissions or any DSM setting, and do not use it for Container Manager or Download Station. Everything outside File Station is a read surface: inspection, export, sync and analysis. The one exception is the files group, which ships DSM's own File Station operations (mkdir, rename, and the copy, move and delete task commands).

Unique Capabilities

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

Knowing what this NAS actually offers

session apis — List every API namespace this particular NAS exposes, with its version range and CGI path.

Run this first when a call fails with DSM error 102 - it tells you whether the namespace exists on this NAS at all or whether the package is simply not installed.
```
synology-pp-cli session apis --agent --select data
```
storage smart — Read a drive's raw SMART attribute table; 'storage smart-schedule' reads the scheduled SMART test configuration.

Reach for this when asked whether a disk is failing - it is the only machine-readable path to per-attribute drive health on a Synology NAS.
```
synology-pp-cli storage smart --device sata1 --agent
```

Recipes

Drive health at a glance

synology-pp-cli storage disks --agent --select disks.id,disks.status,disks.temp,disks.model

The disks payload is deeply nested and verbose; --select narrows it to the four fields a health check needs.

Is this namespace even available

synology-pp-cli session apis --agent

Needs no session and answers the question DSM error 102 raises: does this NAS have that API at all.

Recent errors from the system log

synology-pp-cli log --level err --limit 50 --agent

Filters DSM's syslog server-side by level, so only the rows worth reading come back.

Browse a share without mounting it

synology-pp-cli files list --folder-path /volume1/media --agent

File Station browsing over the API, so no SMB mount and no credentials on the filesystem.

Mirror once, query many times

synology-pp-cli sync && synology-pp-cli search 'volume1' --agent

Sync writes every synced resource into local SQLite; search then answers offline without touching the NAS again.

Command Reference

files — File Station browsing, search and file operations

synology-pp-cli files copy-start — Start a background copy or move and return its task id
synology-pp-cli files copy-status — Report the progress of a running copy or move
synology-pp-cli files copy-stop — Stop a running copy or move
synology-pp-cli files delete-start — Start a background delete and return its task id
synology-pp-cli files delete-status — Report the progress of a running delete
synology-pp-cli files delete-stop — Stop a running delete
synology-pp-cli files download — Download a file or folder
synology-pp-cli files info — Show File Station capabilities and limits
synology-pp-cli files list — List the contents of one folder
synology-pp-cli files mkdir — Create a folder
synology-pp-cli files rename — Rename a file or folder
synology-pp-cli files search-results — Read the results of a running or finished search
synology-pp-cli files search-start — Start a background search and return its task id
synology-pp-cli files search-stop — Stop a running search and release its task
synology-pp-cli files shares — List the shared folders File Station can browse
synology-pp-cli files stat — Show metadata for one file or folder

folder — Shared folders and their permissions

synology-pp-cli folder get — Show one shared folder in detail
synology-pp-cli folder list — List shared folders
synology-pp-cli folder permissions — List the accounts and groups that hold permissions on one shared folder

group — Local groups

synology-pp-cli group list — List local groups
synology-pp-cli group members — List the accounts that belong to one group

log — DSM system log

synology-pp-cli log — Read the DSM system log with filtering by level, date range and keyword

nfs — NFS service state

synology-pp-cli nfs — Show whether the NFS service is enabled and which protocol versions it offers

package — Installed DSM packages

synology-pp-cli package — List installed packages with their version and running state

session — DSM session handshake

synology-pp-cli session apis — Enumerate every API namespace the NAS exposes, with its version range and CGI path
synology-pp-cli session login — Log in to DSM and obtain a session id plus a SynoToken
synology-pp-cli session logout — Invalidate the current session id

storage — Volumes, pools, disks and SMART data

synology-pp-cli storage disks — List physical disks with model, serial number, temperature and health status
synology-pp-cli storage esata — List attached eSATA storage devices
synology-pp-cli storage luns — List iSCSI LUNs
synology-pp-cli storage overview — Show the complete storage picture DSM Storage Manager renders, covering disks, pools and volumes in one call
synology-pp-cli storage pools — List storage pools with their RAID level and member disks
synology-pp-cli storage smart — Show the full SMART attribute table for one disk
synology-pp-cli storage smart-schedule — List scheduled SMART tests
synology-pp-cli storage usb — List attached USB storage devices
synology-pp-cli storage volumes — List volumes with size, used space and status

system — DSM system identity, health and load

synology-pp-cli system dsm — Show DSM product identity as the web UI reports it
synology-pp-cli system health — Show the aggregate system health verdict DSM shows on its dashboard
synology-pp-cli system info — Show model, serial number, firmware version, uptime and temperature
synology-pp-cli system network — Show hostname, DNS, gateway and every network interface
synology-pp-cli system services — List DSM services and whether each one is enabled
synology-pp-cli system ups — Show the state of an attached uninterruptible power supply
synology-pp-cli system utilization — Show current CPU, memory, disk and network utilization

user — Local user accounts

synology-pp-cli user get — Show one local user account in detail
synology-pp-cli user list — List local user accounts

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

synology-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.

Auth Setup

DSM authenticates with an account and password, not an API key. 'session login --account --passwd ' exchanges them for a session id and a SynoToken, both of which are persisted locally; the password never is. Two-factor accounts pass '--otp-code' on the first login and reuse the returned device id afterwards. Set SYNOLOGY_ACCOUNT and SYNOLOGY_PASSWORD so an expired session renews itself mid-run. Point the CLI at your NAS with SYNOLOGY_BASE_URL, and add '--insecure' if it still uses DSM's own self-signed certificate on port 5001.

Run synology-pp-cli doctor to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add --agent to any command. Expands to: --json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes.

Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
Filterable — --select keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:
```
synology-pp-cli files list --folder-path /volume1/media --agent --select id,name,status
```
Previewable — --dry-run shows the request without sending
Offline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Read-only outside File Station - system, storage, SMART, shares, users, groups and logs are read surfaces; only the files group mutates remote state, through DSM's own File Station task operations

Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}

Parse .results for data and .meta.source to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable N results (live) summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (--json, --csv, --compact, --quiet, --plain, --select) is set — piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

Paths and state

Agents should treat the CLI's path resolver as part of the runtime contract:

Use --home <dir> for one invocation, or set SYNOLOGY_HOME=<dir> to relocate all four path kinds under one root.
Use per-kind env vars only when a specific kind must diverge: SYNOLOGY_CONFIG_DIR, SYNOLOGY_DATA_DIR, SYNOLOGY_STATE_DIR, SYNOLOGY_CACHE_DIR.
Resolution order is per-kind env var, --home, SYNOLOGY_HOME, XDG (XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME), then platform defaults.
config contains settings like config.toml and profiles. data contains credentials.toml, data.db, cookies, and auth sidecars. state contains persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log. cache contains regenerable HTTP/cache files.
Stored secrets live in credentials.toml under the data dir. Existing legacy config.toml secrets are read for compatibility and leave config.toml on the first auth write.
Run synology-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to surface path and credential-location warnings. agent-context exposes a schema v4 paths block for agents that need the resolved dirs.

For MCP, pass relocation through the MCP host config. The MCP binary does not inherit CLI flags:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "synology": {
      "command": "synology-pp-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SYNOLOGY_HOME": "/srv/synology"
      }
    }
  }
}

Fleet precedence: an inherited per-kind env var overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use SYNOLOGY_HOME or per-kind vars as durable fleet levers, and use --home only for a single invocation. Relocation is not reversible by unsetting env vars; move files manually before clearing SYNOLOGY_HOME, or doctor will not find credentials left under the former root.

Automatic learning

This CLI ships a self-capturing learning loop. The CLI does its own bookkeeping: every invocation is journaled locally, a failed flag followed by a corrected retry auto-derives a flag_alias candidate, and a teach on a query family without a playbook auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal. Your job is judgment only: recall first, act on surfaced candidates, teach the final answer, playbook amend when you observe a correction. You never record failures by hand.

Step 1: `recall` before any discovery

Before list/search/drill commands on a new user question, run:

# Never interpolate the question into a command line, and never embed it in the
# command text at all - not in quotes and not in a heredoc, whose delimiter the
# question can itself contain. Write the question verbatim to a file with your
# file-writing tool (no shell involved), then read that file into a variable.
# Command substitution on a file only ever yields data: the shell never parses
# the file's bytes as syntax, so there is no boundary for the question to escape.
QUERY=$(cat /path/to/question.txt)
synology-pp-cli recall "$QUERY" --agent

Every recall, teach, teach-playbook and playbook amend example below reuses that $QUERY variable, and any other user-controlled string (a --add-note correction, a learnings forget query) is written to its own file and read in the same way.

The response envelope:

{
  "query": "...",
  "normalized": "<normalized form>",
  "query_entities": ["..."],
  "found": true | false,
  "match_score": 0.0,
  "results": [
    { "resource_id": "...", "resource_type": "...", "venue": "...",
      "confidence": 2, "entity_match": "exact|partial|unknown",
      "source": "taught|preseed|pattern", "warnings": ["..."] }
  ],
  "mismatches": [ /* only when --debug-mismatches */ ],
  "warnings": [ /* top-level */ ],
  "candidates": [
    { "id": 12, "class": "flag_alias | playbook_candidate",
      "summary": "...", "sightings": 3, "last_seen": "...",
      "rationale": "...",
      "next_action": ["<trial command>", "synology-pp-cli learnings confirm 12"] }
  ],
  "playbook": {
    "query_family": "...",
    "playbook": {
      "steps": [ { "cmd": "<command with {slot} substitution>", "purpose": "..." } ],
      "entity_slots": ["$ENTITY"],
      "expected_tool_calls": 3
    },
    "slots_resolved": { "$ENTITY": { "token": "<live token>", "canonical": "<canonical>" } },
    "notes": "<workarounds + gotchas for this query family>"
  },
  "notes": "<duplicate surface for non-playbook callers>"
}

Empty-store short-circuit: if the store has no learnings, playbooks, or candidates yet (recall finds nothing and learnings list and learnings candidates are both empty), skip recall for the rest of this session instead of taxing every query; resume recall-first once something has been taught.

Step 2: decision tree

Read candidates, playbook, notes, results[0], and warnings in that order:

if Candidates present (warnings include "candidates_present"):
    -> candidates are try-then-confirm, never facts. Follow each candidate's
       two-step next_action verbatim: run the trial command first, then run
       `learnings confirm <id>` only after the trial verified the behavior.
       Reject a wrong candidate with `learnings reject <id>`.
    -> NEVER re-teach something recall surfaced as a candidate; confirm or
       reject that candidate instead of teaching a duplicate.
    -> candidates ride alongside playbooks and resource hits, not instead of
       them; continue with the branches below after acting on them.

if Playbook present:
    -> READ Playbook.notes verbatim FIRST (workarounds + gotchas the CLI surface doesn't expose)
    -> replay Playbook.steps in order, substituting Playbook.slots_resolved entries
       for the entity slot tokens. If a step's slot is unresolved, fall back to
       discovery for that step only.
    -> the Playbook's expected_tool_calls is a budget; if you find yourself running
       materially more, record the divergence via `synology-pp-cli playbook amend`
       at end-of-session.

elif Notes present (no Playbook):
    -> read Notes verbatim before any discovery step; they carry known gotchas
       for this query family even when no structured choreography exists yet.

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "exact" AND Results[0].Confidence >= 2:
    -> skip discovery; fetch live data for Results[*].ResourceID in parallel

elif Found AND Results[0].EntityMatch == "partial":
    -> candidate hint, NOT a hit; read the resource title to validate before trusting

elif (any row in Mismatches[] when --debug-mismatches was passed):
    -> treat as cold start; the stored learning is for a different entity
       (different canonical resolved from query_entities)

else:  // Found == false, no playbook, no notes
    -> cold start; run discovery normally; teach the answer afterward (Step 4).
       If the family has no playbook yet, that teach auto-synthesizes a
       playbook candidate from this session's journal - you do not need to
       record one by hand.

Playbook and Notes are orthogonal to the per-resource path. A recall response can carry both a Playbook AND a Results[] hit - use both: the Playbook tells you which choreography to run; the resource hits short-circuit specific steps. Default to skipping mismatches; pass --debug-mismatches only when investigating cold-start surprises.

Candidate judgment details: learnings confirm <id> prints the candidate's full payload before materializing it - check that the printed payload matches the behavior you verified. learnings reject <id> tombstones the derivation signature so the same candidate does not resurface. The envelope carries only the few candidates worth acting on now; synology-pp-cli learnings candidates lists the full open set.

Graceful degradation: if learnings confirm is an unknown command, you are driving an older binary - ignore the candidates guidance and follow the rest of the protocol.

Step 3: always read `warnings`

low_confidence: row exists at confidence<2. Treat as a hint, not a skip-discovery hit.
resource_not_in_store: the local store doesn't have the resource the learning points at. The match validator couldn't classify entities — direct-fetch and re-evaluate.
cross_alias_match (per-result): the row was taught under a different alias and matched the live query's canonical via entity_lookups (e.g., a "USA" teach satisfying a "United States" recall). Trust the resource_id.
similar_shape_different_entity:<canonical> (top-level): a structurally matching row exists but its canonical entity differs from the live query's. Treated as cold start; the warning carries the conflicting canonical as a hint, but the row is NOT promoted into Results.
ambiguous_alias (top-level): a single query entity resolved to multiple canonicals (e.g., "Cards" → Arizona Cardinals + St. Louis Cardinals). Surface the ambiguity from context before committing to a resource.
candidates_present (top-level): the envelope carries a candidates section. Handle it via the candidates branch in Step 2 before anything else.
lookup_refresh_available (top-level): an entity in the query has no lookup row yet, but synced data could provide one. Run synology-pp-cli sync to refresh entity lookups.
Top-level no_learnings_for_query_family: the table had no rows above the Jaccard floor. Pure cold start.

Step 4: `teach &` after finalizing your response - always

Teaching is unconditional. After resolving a query the store could not answer, background-teach the final resource mapping - no call-count threshold, no judging whether it was "worth" learning. The teach is the anchor of the loop: it triggers playbook synthesis for a family without a playbook, and same-referent phrasings fold into one family so near-duplicate teaches do not fragment the store. Fire it after assembling your user-facing response but BEFORE emitting it, with a shell & so the call returns immediately:

synology-pp-cli teach --query "$QUERY" --resource-type <type> --resource <id1> --resource <id2>
# (append shell `&` to background it)

Silent on success. Errors only land in teach.log under the resolved state dir. Teach the most specific resource - if the user asked a broad question and you walked through parent records to find the specific answer, teach the leaf id, not the parent. The CLI uses seeded entity_lookups for cross-alias resolution at recall time, so a teach under one alias (e.g., "Niners") satisfies future queries under another alias (e.g., "49ers", "San Francisco") automatically.

PII rule: teach the structural question with identifiers stripped - never include names, emails, phone numbers, account ids, or other personal identifiers in taught queries or notes. The CLI scans teach queries for obvious email/phone shapes and warns, but does not block; strip before teaching rather than relying on the warning.

Step 5: playbooks - optional flags, automatic synthesis

You do not need to decide whether a session "deserves" a playbook: a teach on a family without one auto-synthesizes a playbook_candidate from the session's journal, and the next session judges it via confirm/reject. Attach explicit playbook flags only when you already hold choreography worth recording verbatim - workarounds the CLI didn't surface (silently-dropped flags, undocumented params, pagination tricks, payload gotchas). Prefer the integrated one-call form - record the resource learning and the playbook in the same teach invocation:

# Common case: record both the resource learning AND the playbook in one call.
synology-pp-cli teach \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --resource <id> \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --playbook-notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md
# (append shell `&` to background it)

# Alternate: playbook-only (no resource to record alongside).
synology-pp-cli teach-playbook \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --playbook-file ~/playbooks/<shape>.json \
  --notes-file ~/playbooks/<shape>-notes.md

Playbook files are JSON with steps, entity_slots, expected_tool_calls. Notes files are markdown carrying the gotchas verbatim. File-free callers (MCP-only agents) pass the same content inline: --playbook-json and --playbook-notes on the integrated teach form, --playbook-json and --notes on teach-playbook. On the integrated teach form, the playbook flags are optional - omit them entirely for a resource-only teach. On the standalone teach-playbook form, at least one of the playbook and notes flags must be set; both empty is rejected. Playbooks are keyed on the structural query family (entities stripped) so a recipe taught from one entity-shaped query applies to every other query of the same shape, with slots_resolved binding the live query's canonical at recall time.

When you DO find a playbook on a future recall, treat it as ground truth: replay the steps with slots_resolved substitutions, skip the discovery that the choreography already documents, and read notes before any step.

Step 6: `playbook amend &` when your debug response identifies a correction

If your debug-protocol response identifies a concrete correction the notes or playbook should know — a workaround, an undocumented endpoint shape, a stale field name, observed schema drift, an empty-payload fallback — fire playbook amend BEFORE emitting your user-facing response. Same fire-and-forget posture as teach.

# Write the correction verbatim to a file with your file-writing tool, then:
NOTE=$(cat /path/to/note.txt)
synology-pp-cli playbook amend \
  --query "$QUERY" \
  --add-note "$NOTE"
# (append shell `&` to background it)

What counts as worth amending: a behavior you OBSERVED this session that future-you would benefit from knowing. Examples worth amending:

A workaround for a CLI surface that silently drops or misorders a flag.
An undocumented endpoint shape (response wrapped in {meta, results}, payload nested two levels deeper than the docs claim).
Observed schema drift (a field renamed, an index that shifted between seasons, a category label that the API now returns lower-cased).

What does NOT belong in notes:

The year-specific or entity-specific answer to the user's question. That's the response, not a learning.
Per-team / per-athlete / per-row data the playbook already retrieves at runtime.
Statements that paraphrase what the existing notes already say.

The amend command appends to the family's existing notes with a timestamped marker ([amend YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MMZ]: <text>). Multiple amends accumulate; the audit trail is visible. If no playbook exists yet for the family, amend creates a notes-only one (so cold-start corrections still land).

PII discipline for amend notes

playbook amend notes are designed to potentially flow upstream as shared knowledge in future versions of the Printing Press. Keep them clean of user-identifying content so the upstream-contribution path stays open without retroactive scrubbing:

Do NOT embed paths to user filesystems, personal API keys or tokens, user email addresses, user GitHub handles, or specific query histories tied to a single user.
Acceptable: endpoint shapes, undocumented field names, API gotchas, observed schema drift, workarounds for CLI surfaces, generalizable pagination or retry tactics.

If a correction is only meaningful with user-specific context, it belongs in a personal note, not in the playbook amend.

Measuring the loop

synology-pp-cli learnings stats reports recall hit rate, teach-to-reuse, playbook resolution rate, and candidate confirm/reject counts from the local learn_events table. Rates are null until they have a denominator; everything stays on this machine. Use it to check whether the loop is earning its keep for this CLI.

Disabling learning

--no-learn on a single command short-circuits both recall and the teach write path. Use for deterministic agent flows or tests that must not be affected by accumulated learnings.
SYNOLOGY_NO_LEARN=true in the environment globally disables the pipeline.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

synology-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
synology-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
synology-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally as feedback.jsonl under the resolved data dir. They are never POSTed unless SYNOLOGY_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or SYNOLOGY_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

Output Delivery

Every command accepts --deliver <sink>. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

Sink	Effect
`stdout`	Default; write to stdout only
`file:<path>`	Atomically write output to `<path>` (tmp + rename)
`webhook:<url>`	POST the output body to the URL (`application/json` or `application/x-ndjson` when `--compact`)

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled or recurring agent reuses the same saved flags while providing different input each run.

synology-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
synology-pp-cli --profile briefing files list --folder-path /volume1/media
synology-pp-cli profile list --json
synology-pp-cli profile show briefing
synology-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults. agent-context lists all available profiles under available_profiles so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	Usage error (wrong arguments)
3	Resource not found
4	Authentication required
5	API error (upstream issue)
7	Rate limited (wait and retry)
10	Config error

Argument Parsing

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

Empty, help, or --help → show synology-pp-cli --help output
Starts with install → ends with mcp → MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with --agent)

MCP Server Installation

Install the MCP binary from this CLI's published public-library entry or pre-built release, then register it:

claude mcp add synology-pp-mcp -- synology-pp-mcp

Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

Check if installed: which synology-pp-cli If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.

Execute with the --agent flag:

synology-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent

If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help: synology-pp-cli <command> --help.