# bggpipe — Shelf-to-BoardGameGeek Collection Pipeline

<img src="assets/logo-full.jpeg" alt="the bggpipe piper — a bagpiper whose bag is a board game box" width="220" align="right">

Photograph your board game shelves. End up with your whole collection — including which *edition* of each game you own — cataloged on [BoardGameGeek](https://boardgamegeek.com).

```
photos/ → [1 extract] → titles.json → [2 resolve] → matches.csv
        → [3 review] → matches.csv (approved) → [4 diff] → to_add.csv
        → [5 upload] → upload_log.csv
        → [6 enrich] → games.json
```

> **Status: working, not yet battle-tested.** All six stages are implemented with an offline test suite. The upload stage's browser flows follow documented selectors but await their first real run — start with `--dry-run`, then `--limit 1`. (This repo also carries its author's in-progress pipeline data; see [Bring your own shelves](#bring-your-own-shelves).)

## Why this exists

BGG has no bulk import and no write API. Cataloging a few hundred games by hand means hours of searching, clicking, and second-guessing which of five editions you own. This pipeline replaces that with: take photos, run a command, resolve a handful of ambiguous matches in a review step, done.

## How it works

1. **extract** — Shelf photos go to the Anthropic API (Claude vision), which reads game titles off spines and boxes along with edition cues: publisher, edition wording, print year, language.
2. **resolve** — Titles are matched to BGG game IDs via the [XML API2](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/BGG_XML_API2) (exact + fuzzy matching, popularity tiebreaks), then edition cues are matched against BGG's version list for each game. Anything uncertain is flagged rather than guessed.
3. **review** — A local review step for ambiguous matches: pick the right game/version, or leave the version blank. Wrong guesses never reach your collection.
4. **diff** — Your existing BGG collection is fetched and compared, per copy (owning one edition of a game doesn't hide a second edition you also own).
5. **upload** — A Playwright browser session logs into your BGG account and adds each game (with its version, when known) politely and slowly. Dry-run mode, per-game logging, and resumability included.
6. **enrich** — Full metadata for every game (designers, player counts, weight, rank, mechanics, artwork URLs, version details) lands in `data/games.json`, the seed data for a future web frontend.

Every stage is idempotent and resumable: kill it mid-run, restart, lose nothing. All artifacts are flat CSV/JSON files you can inspect and edit.

## Requirements

- macOS or Linux, Python 3.12+, [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/)
- An [Anthropic API key](https://console.anthropic.com/) (vision extraction)
- A BoardGameGeek account **and a registered BGG application** — as of BGG's [2025 API policy](https://boardgamegeek.com/using_the_xml_api), the XML API requires a Bearer token from a registered app. Register a free non-commercial application at [boardgamegeek.com/applications](https://boardgamegeek.com/applications) (approval can take a week or more, so **apply on day one**), then create a token. Each user needs their own; tokens must not be shared.

## Quick start

```sh
git clone https://git.kestrelsnest.social/eric/bggpipe.git
cd bggpipe
uv sync              # installs Python deps
uv run bggpipe init  # guided setup: folders, credentials, browser download
```

The `init` wizard is idempotent — re-run it anytime to check status or add keys you skipped. It prompts for the credentials below (hidden input, saved to a `.env` it creates with owner-only permissions) and offers the one-time Playwright Chromium download. Prefer doing it by hand? `cp .env.example .env`, fill it in, and run `uv run playwright install chromium` yourself.

Secrets live in environment variables only, never in config files, code, or logs. `.env` is gitignored. If you use [direnv](https://direnv.net/), the committed `.envrc` loads `.env` automatically after a one-time `direnv allow`; otherwise export the variables yourself (e.g. `set -a; source .env; set +a`).

| Variable | Used by | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| `ANTHROPIC_API_KEY` | extract | Anthropic API key |
| `BGG_API_TOKEN` | resolve, diff, enrich | Bearer token from your registered BGG application |
| `BGG_USERNAME` | diff, upload, enrich | Your BGG username (public, but kept in `.env` so it lives in one place) |
| `BGG_PASSWORD` | upload (website login) | Your BGG password |

Non-secret knobs (`photos_dir`, `data_dir`, the vision model, the rate limit) live in `config.toml`. Drop your shelf photos into `photos/` and run the stages in order:

```sh
uv run bggpipe extract              # photos → titles.json (+ retake prompts)
uv run bggpipe resolve              # titles → BGG ids/versions in matches.csv
uv run bggpipe review --web        # review UI at http://127.0.0.1:8377/
uv run bggpipe diff                 # compare against your BGG collection
uv run bggpipe upload --dry-run    # ALWAYS inspect this first
uv run bggpipe upload --limit 1    # then one game, then small batches
uv run bggpipe enrich               # full metadata → data/games.json
```

Each stage skips work it has already done; `--force`/`--refresh` flags redo it. `review` without `--web` runs in the terminal instead. `upload` also has `--retry-failed`, `--verify` (re-fetches your collection and cross-checks the log), and runs a **headed** browser by default — BGG's Cloudflare check blocks headless ones, and a first login may need one human click before the session is saved locally and reused.

### Taking good shelf photos

Straight-on, one shelf (or part of one) per shot, close enough that spine text is legible to a human. If you can't read it, the model can't either. Overlap between shots is fine: duplicate reads are deduped automatically, with the merge shown (and veto-able) in review. Boxes the model spots but can't identify become retake prompts in `unidentified.json` and the review UI's "reshoot" list: photograph those boxes up close, drop the new photo in `photos/`, and run `extract` again.

## Bring your own shelves

This repo doubles as its author's live pipeline, so `data/` ships with his real artifacts — extracted titles, matches, and 2018 collection snapshots. Before running against *your* shelves, clear the data:

```sh
rm data/*.csv data/*.json data/*.xml data/STUB_DATA.marker
rm -rf data/bgg_cache data/extract_raw
```

Two of those files deserve a word:

- **`data/STUB_DATA.marker`** — the committed CSVs were resolved from *hand-written stub fixtures* (the author's BGG application is still awaiting approval), so every version id in them is a synthetic placeholder. The upload stage refuses to run while this marker exists, precisely so nobody (including a fresh clone) can push placeholder data to a real BGG account. Starting fresh with your own token, you'll never see it again.
- **`data/collection_snapshot_*.xml`** — with `BGG_API_TOKEN` set, `diff` fetches your collection live and you don't need these. Without a token (still waiting on approval?), you can use the logged-in-browser exemption: while signed in to BGG, save these two URLs as `data/collection_snapshot_base.xml` and `data/collection_snapshot_expansions.xml` (if you get a "queued" message, refresh after a few seconds):
  - `https://boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/collection?username=YOU&own=1&version=1`
  - `https://boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/collection?username=YOU&own=1&version=1&subtype=boardgameexpansion`

No token yet? `extract` works immediately (it only needs the Anthropic key), and `resolve` does what it can, parking the rest as "waiting on BGG API token" — it picks them up automatically once the token exists. Everything is saved as you go.

## Development

```sh
uv run pytest                 # offline test suite (stub fixtures, no network)
uv run pytest --run-live      # + a read-only live-API smoke test (needs token)
uv run ruff check src tests   # lint
uv run bggpipe review --web --dev   # review UI with code hot-reload
```

The review UI live-follows the data files — run `extract` or `resolve` in another terminal and the page updates itself. Architecture and contributor guidance: [CLAUDE.md](CLAUDE.md) and the [full spec](bgg-shelf-pipeline-spec.md); BGG automation notes: [docs/bgg-upload-flow.md](docs/bgg-upload-flow.md).

## A note on being a good BGG citizen

This tool is **not affiliated with or supported by BoardGameGeek**. It uses only the sanctioned XML API2 for reads (with your own registered application token, per BGG's current policy) and drives the regular website for writes, deliberately slowly (one request every couple of seconds, slower for uploads). Please keep it that way: BGG is a community resource running on community goodwill. You are responsible for your own account — review the dry-run output before a real upload.

## License

MIT — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).

Mascot art by Juniper, used with pride.
