Raley

Named after someone who made grocery day feel less like a hostage negotiation with your own pantry.

Automated grocery shopping assistant with intelligent unit pricing, automatic coupon clipping, and an MCP server so your AI can argue with produce departments on your behalf.

What This Does

You tell Raley what you need. Raley finds the best deal, calculates unit pricing across every bizarre measurement the grocery industry has invented (per oz, per lb, per "each" — what even is an "each"), clips relevant coupons, and manages your cart. All through a CLI or Claude Desktop.

The grocery store API uses F5 bot detection, so Raley shells out to curl for TLS fingerprint evasion instead of using Python HTTP libraries that get immediately flagged. Yes, we're using subprocess.run(["curl", ...]) in 2026. Sometimes the unglamorous solution is the one that actually works.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/johnzfitch/raley-bot/main/install.sh | bash

This clones the repo, sets up a Python venv, installs dependencies, and symlinks raley-bot to ~/.local/bin. Requires git and curl (installs uv automatically if missing).

Then log in:

raley-bot login

Manual Install

git clone https://github.com/johnzfitch/raley-bot.git
cd raley-bot

uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[login]"

raley-bot login

CLI

raley search "organic spinach"    # Find products with unit pricing
raley history                     # Previously purchased items
raley offers                      # Available coupons
raley clip-all                    # Clip everything. All of it.
raley status                      # Session health check
raley orders                      # Order history
raley points                      # Something Extra balance

MCP Server (Claude Desktop / Claude Code)

Claude Desktop — add to ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Linux) or ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "raley-bot": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--directory", "/path/to/raley-bot", "raley-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code — add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "raley-bot": {
      "command": "/path/to/raley-bot/.venv/bin/raley-mcp",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}

The install script configures these automatically.

Then talk to Claude like a normal person:

"Find me avocados, show me the best deal"
"Add organic spinach to my cart"
"What's in my cart?"
"Plan a grocery run: milk, eggs, bread, chicken thighs"

MCP Tools

Tool	What It Does
search	Find products with unit pricing and value analysis
add	Add items to cart (returns product name for confirmation)
remove	Remove items by SKU
cart	View cart (supports summary_only, save_to_file, limit)
offers	List, clip all, or sync coupons to local DB
plan	Parse freeform grocery lists, find best matches (does not auto-add)
price	Check price history from local tracking DB
orders	Order history with date range and spend totals
auth	Session status (no cookie values exposed)

Unit Pricing

Raley normalizes prices across every unit the grocery industry throws at you. A 6CT avocado bag at $4.99 becomes $0.83/unit. A 2lb chicken breast at $8.99 becomes $0.28/oz. Weight-based items show per-oz or per-lb depending on size. Liquids get per-ml. Count items get per-unit.

{
  "sku": "10101877",
  "name": "Hass Avocado, 6CT Bag",
  "price": "$4.99",
  "cents": 499,
  "per_unit": "$0.83"
}

Architecture

raley_assistant/
├── api.py           # Curl-based HTTP client (F5 evasion)
├── cli.py           # Click CLI with Rich tables
├── mcp_server.py    # MCP tools for Claude Desktop
├── unit_pricing.py  # Normalize $/oz, $/lb, $/unit, $/ml
├── cart_builder.py  # Freeform grocery list parsing
├── reasoning.py     # Purchase frequency analysis
├── db.py            # SQLite price history tracking
├── auth.py          # Browser-based login (Helium/Selenium)
└── cookies.py       # Session persistence

How the HTTP Client Works

The store's API sits behind F5 BIG-IP with browser fingerprinting. Python's requests and httpx get blocked because their TLS handshakes don't match real browsers. Rather than importing a Rust-based TLS emulation library (the previous approach using rnet, which created a phantom dependency that was never wired in), the client shells out to system curl which naturally produces a browser-like TLS fingerprint. Ugly, effective, zero exotic dependencies.

Data Storage

What	Where
Session cookies	~/.config/raley-assistant/cookies.json (mode 0600)
Price history DB	~/.local/share/raley-assistant/raley.db
Saved results	~/.local/share/raley-assistant/*.json (mode 0600)

Security Notes

Session cookies are written with 0600 permissions (owner read/write only). Cookie values are sanitized for header injection characters before being passed to curl. No credentials, tokens, or cookie values are ever logged, committed, or included in MCP tool responses. The auth tool explicitly returns session status without exposing cookie contents.

The search tool is read-only — it does not silently clip coupons or modify cart state. Write operations (add, remove, offers clip_all) are always explicit.

Rate limiting is applied to bulk operations (200ms between requests, 500ms every 10th request) to avoid triggering bot detection.

Preferences

Copy the example and edit to taste:

cp preferences.example.json ~/.config/raley-assistant/preferences.json

Format:

{
  "milk": {
    "brand": "Clover",
    "type": "whole",
    "size": "gallon"
  },
  "general": {
    "prefer_local": true,
    "organic_preference": "indifferent",
    "budget_target": 200
  }
}

Troubleshooting

Session expired? → raley-bot login

Browser login not working? → Export cookies manually with a browser extension ("Cookie-Editor" or "EditThisCookie"), save as JSON, then raley login --file cookies.json

Database corrupted? → rm ~/.local/share/raley-assistant/raley.db (rebuilds on next search)

Coupon clip limit? → Some manufacturer coupons have daily claim limits. This is server-side, not a bug.

Development

uv pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial tool not affiliated with or endorsed by the grocery chain. Use responsibly and in accordance with their Terms of Service. This project is named after a person, not a brand.

License

Unlicense