printer

What This Skill Does

The Printer skill for OpenClaw provides comprehensive control over macOS CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) managed printers. It allows users to manage the entire lifecycle of a printer from discovery to maintenance. This skill abstracts complex command-line operations into intuitive agent commands, enabling users to scan for local network printers, add driverless IPP Everywhere queues, manage print job queues, and inspect hardware status without needing a graphical user interface. Whether you are automating office document workflows or troubleshooting a non-responsive printer, this skill handles the heavy lifting through native system binaries.

Installation

You can integrate this skill into your environment by executing the following command in your terminal:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/dhvanilpatel/printer

Ensure that you have sufficient administrative privileges on your macOS system, as certain operations—such as configuring printer defaults via lpadmin or enabling SNMP supply reporting—may require sudo access.

Use Cases

1. Automated Office Workflows: Automatically route documents to specific network printers with custom formatting requirements like duplex printing or grayscale output.
2. Fleet Diagnostics: Quickly poll printer status across a network to check for errors, paper jams, or depleted toner levels without manual intervention.
3. Network Maintenance: Keep network printers awake and prevent them from entering deep-sleep modes by scheduling periodic IPP pokes, ensuring high availability in professional environments.
4. Queue Cleanup: Programmatically clear stuck print jobs or pause/resume printers during maintenance windows.

Example Prompts

1. "Find all available network printers on my current network and list their connection details."
2. "Add the printer at printer.local as a default device and configure it to print in grayscale by default."
3. "Check the current queue status for my office printer and cancel all pending jobs that are currently stuck."

Tips & Limitations

• Driverless Printing: This skill relies heavily on IPP Everywhere. Ensure your printer supports IPP/AirPrint for the smoothest experience.
• Permissions: Some advanced configurations and diagnostic commands require elevated user permissions. If a command fails, ensure the agent has the necessary system scopes.
• SNMP: While the skill supports SNMP for toner levels, it assumes the standard community string 'public'. If your printer uses a custom security configuration, you may need to adjust the command arguments.
• Keep-alive: For long-term availability, consider wrapping the keep-alive poll command in a launchd plist file to ensure it persists across system reboots.