bggpipe/docs/guide.md

The bggpipe user's guide

Everything past the README's quick start: credentials, every stage and its flags, the web app, phones, RPGs, fixing the model's mistakes, and running without a BGG token. Screenshots of everything described here: the tour.

Contents

• Credentials and configuration
• The web app
• From your phone
• The stages, from the terminal
• Taking good shelf photos
• Fixing what the model gets wrong
• RPGs on your shelves
• Uploading safely
• Running before your BGG token arrives
• Keeping your data safe from git

Credentials and configuration

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? Copy .env.example beside your data, fill it in, and run playwright install chromium yourself.

Secrets live in environment variables only, never in config files, code, or logs, and .env is gitignored. Every bggpipe command loads .env from the working directory by itself — real environment variables always win over the file, so direnv users and CI overrides keep working unchanged.

Your credentials never leave your machine except to sign in to boardgamegeek.com itself — the README spells out the full privacy picture. The password exists solely because BGG has no write API: adding games means driving the real website, in a visible browser window, on your computer. The saved browser session (storage_state.json) is credential-adjacent — it stays local and gitignored too.

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 live in config.toml: photos_dir, data_dir, the BGG rate limit, and the vision setup — a [vision.<provider>] block per provider ("anthropic" or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including a local Ollama), with vision_provider picking one. Local models read spines noticeably worse than frontier ones — expect a longer proofread pass on the Titles page, not a broken pipeline.

What extraction costs: the vision call is the pipeline's only paid step, and it's small — the author's full collection (65 shelf photos, 136 games) came to under a dollar on the default model (Claude Sonnet). It's also one-time: raw reads are cached per photo, so re-running extract is free, and only new or replaced photos are ever sent again. Everything BGG-side is free (the API token costs nothing).

The web app

bggpipe web    # opens http://127.0.0.1:8377/ — the whole app in the browser

Eight pages — Pipeline, Photos, Titles, Review, Queue, Library, Shelves, and Help — all pictured in the tour. Stage runs execute one at a time in the background with live output:

Stage runs execute one at a time; every decision saves immediately; the pages live-follow the data files, so a stage run in another terminal shows up without a refresh. The real upload sits behind a confirmation (and behind a stub-data lock if synthetic test fixtures ever regenerate). The in-app Help page documents every status chip and keyboard shortcut.

From your phone

The app is localhost-only by default. To use it from a phone or tablet on your network — proofreading from the couch, or shooting shelf photos straight into the pipeline — serve it to the LAN instead:

bggpipe web --lan   # localhost + your network, behind an access key

Startup prints a pairing link (?k=...) and a QR code: point the phone's camera at the terminal and tap. Pairing is one-time per device — the key persists across restarts (data/.lan_key; delete it to revoke every paired device) and the cookie lasts a year. Save the page to the phone's home screen for the full-screen treatment, piper icon included.

To photograph shelves from the phone: on the Photos page, tap the drop zone and choose "Take Photo." The upload narrates its progress, and camera captures get unique shelf-<timestamp> names so rapid-fire shots never overwrite each other. The key is the only lock — there is no login behind it — so still prefer networks you trust (or use a device VPN like Tailscale against the localhost default instead).

The stages, from the terminal

Every stage is also a command, and the two interfaces share all state:

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

Each stage skips work it has already done; --force/--refresh flags redo it. 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. review without --web runs in the terminal instead.

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 Photos page's "reshoot" tickets: photograph those boxes up close, drop the new photo in, and run extract again.

Fixing what the model gets wrong

Vision reads aren't perfect, and you know things the photos don't show. The Titles page lets you edit a title (fix a misspelling, add publisher/edition/year/language cues you know offhand), split a line into per-photo copies when one title is actually several boxes, remove lines that aren't games at all, and add a game no photo caught. Every one of these is durable: the decision lands in a small committed store (data/title_edits.json, data/title_splits.json, data/title_removals.json, data/title_additions.json) that is replayed on every rebuild — re-running extract or resolve can never undo your curation. Undo any decision by deleting its record from the store.

Games BGG doesn't have at all can be kept as local library citizens: their detail page in the Library takes hand-written facts (players, playtime, publisher, notes) and a cover photo of your own, stored in data/local_games.json and data/local_art/ — the only source such a game will ever have.

RPGs on your shelves

Tabletop RPGs aren't in BGG's board-game database — they live on RPGGeek, which shares the same underlying API. When a title isn't found as a board game, bggpipe retries as an RPG: matches are identified, enriched (designers, publishers, genres from RPGGeek), and browsable in the library (filter: RPGs), but they stay local only — they're never uploaded, since your BGG collection can't hold them. When the automatic search can't reach the right database (BGG has board games named "Dungeons & Dragons" too), every Review card has explicit search BGG / search RPGGeek buttons.

Uploading safely

upload drives a real logged-in browser session against your real account, so it is deliberately careful:

• --dry-run logs what would happen without touching the site — always read it first, then --limit 1, then small batches:

  

• The browser runs headed 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.

• Requests are slow on purpose (seconds between actions, per BGG's API policy); the Queue page shows exactly what will run before it runs, and upload_log.csv keeps a permanent record of every attempt.

• --retry-failed re-attempts failures; --verify re-fetches your collection and cross-checks the log. Note that BGG's collection export can lag the website by hours — freshly-landed work may look missing to diff/--verify until it catches up.

• Review decisions outrank the queue: re-deciding a match after diff retires its queued job automatically.

Running before your BGG token arrives

BGG application approval can take a week or more. Until then: extract works immediately (it only needs the vision 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.

diff normally fetches your collection live, but there's a logged-in-browser exemption that needs no token: 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

Where everything lives

The Shelves page maps your physical storage and draws it as it really stands: openings group into rows by their label letters, and each cell's width is proportional to its interior width, so a Kallax with a double-wide top row renders as exactly that — a diagram of the wall, not a list. Create units from presets (IKEA Kallax cube 13.25″ × 13.25″ × 15.4″, Billy shelf, custom, or a no-size virtual spot like "travel case") as grids of rows × columns; add more sections to an existing unit the same way — a later grid continues the row letters, so 3 × 4 under an A row lands as B1…D4. Duplicate a unit to stamp out identical furniture — the copy takes the structure (openings, sizes, zones, descriptions) under a fresh auto-numbered name, never the games — and rename any unit in place. Openings are editable (dimensions are all-or-none: three numbers or a no-limit spot), reorderable within their row (moves clamp at row boundaries so the diagram can't fragment), and deletable. Both units and openings take a free-text description alongside the zone keyword — the label is the address, the zone matches, the description explains. Everything lands in data/furniture.json + data/locations.json — committed local stores; your shelf layout is never sent anywhere.

Assigning games: every measured unshelved game shows up to three suggested openings, ranked by a strict relevance doctrine. An opening already holding a series-mate or base game ranks first (marked ♥) — kinship is the pre-colon name stem plus BGG's series field, no taxonomy to maintain, so every placement you confirm teaches the suggester your organization and expansions chase their base games automatically. "Fits" always means the remaining opening — stack budget already spent is subtracted — and after that, tightest verified fit, so small boxes are offered cubes and never the oversize row. A measured game with nowhere suitable says "no matching openings yet"; an unmeasured game gets no suggestions at all, because can't-verify is not the same as fits. You can also assign by searching inside an opening, or from a game's detail page (openings grouped by unit, each labeled fits / doesn't fit / can't verify). Games stored inside another box inherit their container's spot — through whole chains (minis in an insert in a big box live where the big box does). On a phone over --lan, the opening view docks as a bottom sheet — the moving-day loop is search, tap, done.

When you publish with bggpipe export, the shelves come too: game pages say where each box lives, containers list their contents, and a shelves page draws the wall as it physically stands, every opening linking its residents. Publishing your shelf layout is a choice — --no-shelves keeps the whole layer out of the export.

Bulk-load a reviewed plan with bggpipe shelve --import plan.csv (columns name,opening, accepting opening ids or labels) — rejects are reported (unknown name, ambiguous copies, unknown opening, doesn't fit, lives inside another box), never guessed. Re-importing is an upsert, not a reset: rows move their games, games absent from the plan keep their spots, and hand-entered notes, lane choices, and acknowledgments survive whenever the opening is unchanged.

The packer is deliberately conservative — one flat pile plus one standing row per opening — and real shelves are 3-D: boxes sit crosswise, ride on top of piles, stand proud of a shallow shelf. When the model refuses a placement you can see with your own eyes, overrule it: the it's here anyway button in the opening's view (or an acknowledge column, yes, in the import CSV) confirms the box is really there. An acknowledged box takes a lane when one works — the spine-out overhang case lands "standing, proud", skipping only the depth check — and when even that fails it's marked wedged in: really there, outside the capacity bars, never warned about. Tap "here ✓" to retract. Assignment and capacity are separate truths: a game listed in an opening IS there regardless of what the packer thinks of the arrangement.

Where a game lives and where it is can differ — the travel case, a friend's house. Every game's detail page has a Right now field: type "travel case" or "loaned to Ben" and the box is marked out everywhere (an "out:" chip in its home opening, on the export's game page too) while its home spot stays reserved — the shelf math doesn't change because a loan isn't a move. Contents ride along: games stored inside an out box read as out with it. Blank the field and it's back; nothing else is touched.

Unmeasured games can't join the capacity math at all — so measure them. The "unmeasured — measure it" button in the opening's view takes width × length × depth in inches, saved to data/measurements.json (committed, like all curation). Your tape measure outranks BGG: hand measurements overlay whatever enrich found, everywhere sizes are used (fit checks, suggestions, bggpipe dims, the export). Save with all three fields empty to clear one. An acknowledged box takes the standing lane without the depth check — the width budget stays honest — and stops counting as a warning. Once acknowledged, later imports needn't re-state it. bggpipe dims reports per-opening capacity, overfull warnings, and misfits against your real furniture. Capacity uses a two-lane packing model: each opening holds a flat stack (thinnest axes summing against interior height, claiming the widest flat box's width) and a standing lane beside it (boxes on edge against the remaining width) — the largest boxes lie flat, smaller ones stand, and you can flip any box's lane in the opening's view. An opening warns only when no packing fits. Unmeasured boxes are counted and shown, never silently assumed to fit.

Shelf-space planning

Physical box dimensions live on BGG versions, not games, so enrich collects them in a second cached pass: your exact version's numbers where you chose one, otherwise a value only when every listed printing agrees (within half an inch per axis — disagreement is stored as conflicting, never guessed, and BGG's 0 means "never entered", not zero inches). Then:

bggpipe dims

reports coverage, the ten biggest footprints, and per-opening fit checks against your own furniture (see Where everything lives) — capacity, overfull warnings, boxes that fit in no orientation, and every game whose dimensions can't be verified, because can't-verify is not the same as fits. Trusted dimensions also show on each game's Library detail page.

Publishing your library on your own site

bggpipe export --out ~/my-site/static/library --title "My Game Shelves"

Writes the library as self-contained static pages: an index with search, one page per game, and a local copy of every cover (public pages must not hotlink BGG's image CDN). No server, no build step — drop the directory into any static host, Hugo/Jekyll static/ folder included. Re-runs are idempotent: already-downloaded covers are kept, failed downloads are retried, and page URLs stay stable.

What's included follows a privacy rule: cover art, stats, your editions, and your hand-added local games — never your shelf photos (they picture the inside of your home; they stay in the private app).

BGG's API policy asks public-facing apps to display the "Powered by BGG" badge. The footer carries a text badge automatically; to show the official logo, save it from your registered application page at boardgamegeek.com/applications as data/powered-by-bgg.png and re-export.

Keeping your data safe from git

The README's quick start — installed as a tool, run in a directory of your own — is the only supported way to use bggpipe on your collection. Everything the pipeline produces lives where you run it, and uv tool upgrade bggpipe picks up fixes without going anywhere near your data.

Why not clone and run? The source repo doubles as its author's live pipeline: data/ ships with their real artifacts, committed and updated often. Run inside a clone and your data lands at git-tracked paths — the next git pull will refuse to merge, and the usual remedies (git reset --hard, git checkout ., git stash, git clean -fdx) would destroy your review decisions, hand-written games, upload log, and photos. bggpipe detects this arrangement and warns at init and on the web dashboard; don't ignore it.

One committed file of the author's data deserves a word: data/STUB_DATA.marker is normally absent. It appears only if the synthetic stub fixtures (from scripts/write_stub_fixtures.py) regenerate the CSVs, and the upload stage refuses to run while it exists — so placeholder data can never reach a real BGG account.