name: pp-adminbyrequest
description: "Every Admin By Request portal action, plus a local SQLite mirror of audit, events, inventory and requests for ad-hoc... Trigger phrases: list pending admin by request elevations, approve adminbyrequest request, deny adminbyrequest request, generate offline elevation PIN, check who keeps requesting admin elevation, sync admin by request audit log, use adminbyrequest, run adminbyrequest."
author: "joltsconsulting"
license: "Apache-2.0"
argument-hint: "
Admin By Request — Printing Press CLI
Prerequisites: Install the CLI
This skill drives the adminbyrequest-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/binon macOS/Linux and%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\binon Windows:npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install adminbyrequest --cli-only - Verify:
adminbyrequest-pp-cli --version - Ensure the reported install directory is on
$PATHfor 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 1.26.3 or newer):
go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/devices/adminbyrequest/cmd/adminbyrequest-pp-cli@latest
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.
When to Use This CLI
Use this CLI when you are administering an Admin By Request tenant from a terminal or AI agent: triaging pending requests in bulk, pulling audit data into a SIEM you have not yet wired up, generating offline PINs without opening the portal, or answering cross-resource questions (repeat requestors, agent-version drift) that the portal does not directly support.
Unique Capabilities
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Local state that compounds
requests repeat-offenders— Surface the top users by elevation-request count over a configurable window, so admins can spot patterns the portal does not visualize.When tracing repeated elevation attempts across a fleet, this is the single query that names the people; without it, an agent has to walk every request and aggregate manually.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests repeat-offenders --window 30d --jsoncorrelate— Given an audit log entry ID, join it to nearby events on the same computer to reconstruct a full elevation timeline.Incident response often asks what else happened on this machine when this admin session opened; this is the single command that answers it.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli correlate 50461167 --window 5m --json
Fleet hygiene
inventory drift— List endpoints whose AbR client version is older than a target version, useful for upgrade campaigns.Before any compliance audit, the agent should know which endpoints are running an old client; this is the one-liner.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli inventory drift --client-version 8.7.2 --jsoninventory risk-score— Score each endpoint by elevation frequency, local-admin count, and AbR client version recency.Lets an admin focus remediation effort on the endpoints most likely to be abused.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli inventory risk-score --top 10 --json
Reachability mitigation
quota forecast— Track local API call count against the 100k-per-day quota and predict whether the current pace will exceed it before midnight.Reachability mitigation: an agent that calls the API in a loop needs to know before it bricks the tenant for the day.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli quota forecast --json
Compliance and review
requests denied-reasons— Tokenize the free-text deniedReason field across all denied requests and emit a top-N word distribution.For compliance review and tone-of-policy checks, surfacing the actual words used is faster than reading each row.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests denied-reasons --top 20 --jsonreport compliance— Render audit entries for a user or computer over a window in a format suitable for auditors (CSV or markdown).Auditor evidence requests always want a single artifact; this generates it in one command.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli report compliance --since 2026-01-01 --user CHRISCOOMBES --format md
Command Reference
auditlog — Admin session and elevation audit log entries
adminbyrequest-pp-cli auditlog delta— Delta query for audit log changes (use timeNow/deltaTime ticks for resumable sync)adminbyrequest-pp-cli auditlog list— List audit log entries (admin sessions, app elevations, denied requests). Pagination is by id cursor.
events — Security and operational events emitted by AbR clients
adminbyrequest-pp-cli events— List events. Use code filter to narrow to specific event types.
inventory — Endpoint inventory: hardware, software, OS, AbR agent version
adminbyrequest-pp-cli inventory list— List inventoried endpoints. Use wantsoftware/wanthardware to expand.adminbyrequest-pp-cli inventory pin— Generate an offline elevation PIN code for a device. Pass --challenge for challenge-response mode.
requests — Pending, approved, and denied elevation requests
adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests approve— Approve a pending elevation request.adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests deny— Deny a pending elevation request.adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests list— List elevation requests filtered by status.
Hand-written commands
adminbyrequest-pp-cli correlate <auditlog-id>— Join an audit log entry to nearby events on the same computer (window in minutes)adminbyrequest-pp-cli report— Render compliance reports from synced dataadminbyrequest-pp-cli quota— Track local API call count vs AbR's 100k/day quota
Finding the right command
When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:
adminbyrequest-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.
Recipes
Triage pending requests as JSON
adminbyrequest-pp-cli requests list --status pending --agent --select id,user.account,reason
Surface the pending elevation queue in agent-friendly JSON narrowed to the fields needed to decide. Approve or deny individual ids with requests approve <id> --reason ... or requests deny <id> --reason ....
Compliance evidence for one user
adminbyrequest-pp-cli report compliance --since 2026-01-01 --user CHRISCOOMBES --format md > evidence.md
Render every audit log entry for a user since a date into a markdown report.
Find every device on an old client
adminbyrequest-pp-cli inventory drift --client-version 8.7.2 --json --select name,abrClientVersion
Inventory drift filters the synced inventory snapshot for endpoints below the target client version.
Check today's API quota consumption
adminbyrequest-pp-cli quota show --agent
Local counter of API calls made today; the CLI tracks them in ~/.cache/adminbyrequest-pp-cli/http/ so this command itself never costs an API call.
Audit-to-event timeline narrowed via --select
adminbyrequest-pp-cli correlate 50461167 --window 5m --agent --select audit.application.name,audit.user.account,events.eventText,events.eventTime
Joins audit entry to nearby events on the same computer; --select narrows the deeply nested response so the agent does not parse the full payload.
Auth Setup
Set ADMINBYREQUEST_API_KEY in your environment. The CLI sends it via the apikey header. AbR enforces a 100,000-call daily quota per tenant; the CLI tracks calls locally and warns you before exhaustion via quota forecast.
Run adminbyrequest-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 —
--selectkeeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:adminbyrequest-pp-cli auditlog list --agent --select id,name,statusPreviewable —
--dry-runshows the request without sendingOffline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Explicit retries — use
--idempotentonly when an already-existing create should count as success
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 — piped/agent consumers get pure JSON on stdout.
Agent Feedback
When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:
adminbyrequest-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
adminbyrequest-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
adminbyrequest-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10
Entries are stored locally at ~/.adminbyrequest-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl. They are never POSTed unless ADMINBYREQUEST_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT is set AND either --send is passed or ADMINBYREQUEST_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 agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.
adminbyrequest-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
adminbyrequest-pp-cli --profile briefing auditlog list
adminbyrequest-pp-cli profile list --json
adminbyrequest-pp-cli profile show briefing
adminbyrequest-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→ showadminbyrequest-pp-cli --helpoutput - Starts with
install→ ends withmcp→ 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 adminbyrequest-pp-mcp -- adminbyrequest-pp-mcp
Verify: claude mcp list
Direct Use
- Check if installed:
which adminbyrequest-pp-cliIf 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
--agentflag:adminbyrequest-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent - If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
adminbyrequest-pp-cli <command> --help.