The Problem with Amazon Catalog Audits (And the Free Tool That Fixes It)
Why I built CLI Light — and why I’m giving it away.
I spent 6 hours last Tuesday manually auditing a client’s Category Listing Report.
Line by line. SKU by SKU. Hunting for missing attributes, checking bullet points against Amazon’s RUFUS guidelines, flagging prohibited characters.
By hour 4, my eyes were blurry. By hour 5, I was questioning my life choices. By hour 6, I had a spreadsheet full of issues... and a client who needed it yesterday.
Sound familiar?
If you’re an Amazon consultant, you’ve been there. CLR audits are necessary, tedious, and absolutely **unglamorous**. They’re also expensive to outsource and error-prone when you’re bleary-eyed at 11 PM.
So I built something.
Meet CLI Light
Catalog CLI Light is a free command-line tool that audits Amazon Category Listing Reports in seconds.
Not minutes. Not “go grab coffee and come back.” Seconds.
It runs 12 different catalog health checks, outputs structured JSON (for automation), and gives you actionable fixes ranked by severity.
And yeah — it’s completely free. MIT licensed. No upsells, no freemium traps, no “contact sales for pricing.”
What It Actually Does
Upload a CLR. Run one command. Get this:
```bash
$ catalog scan {your CLR name.xlsx} --format json
{
“marketplace”: “US”,
“is_us_marketplace”: true,
“total_issues”: 47,
“total_affected_skus”: 23,
“queries”: [
{
“query_name”: “missing-attributes”,
“total_issues”: 12,
“affected_skus”: 8,
“issues”: [
{
“row”: 7,
“sku”: “XYZ.ABC”,
“field”: “brand”,
“severity”: “required”,
“details”: “Missing required field: brand”
}
]
}
]
}
```
That JSON? Your AI agent can parse it. Your Python script can process it. Your tired brain at 11 PM doesn’t have to hunt through 1,000 rows of Excel.
The 12 Checks (Yes, I Just Added 2 More)
v1.3.0 dropped a couple days ago and v2.0 dropped yesterday. Here’s what’s new:
🌍 Marketplace Detection
The CLI now auto-extracts marketplace from your CLR. Upload a file, know immediately if it’s US, CA, UK, DE, etc. Multi-marketplace sellers, rejoice.
⚠️ Bullet Awareness Checks
This one’s sneaky. It flags “soft violations” — issues that won’t get your listing rejected, but absolutely hurt conversion:
- All caps at the start: “PREMIUM QUALITY FORMULA...” (looks spammy)
- Excessive caps: >30% of text in CAPS (reads as shouting)
- Problematic special chars: Math symbols, unusual quotes, arrows (break indexing)
These aren’t in Amazon’s official requirements. But I’ve seen them tank conversion rates.
What's New in v2.0
🤖 MCP Server Support
Connect Catalog CLI directly to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client. Your AI agent can now audit Amazon CLRs as native function calls—no shell commands, no parsing headaches.
📊 Schema Introspection
Agents can now query the CLI itself to discover available commands, parameters, and response shapes. No more stale documentation in system prompts.
🎯 Field Masks & Pagination
Scan 10,000 SKU catalogs without blowing up context windows. Request only the fields you need, paginate results, or stream as NDJSON.
🛡️ Input Hardening
Built-in validation rejects path traversal, injection attempts, and malformed input. Because agents hallucinate—and the CLI is the last line of defense.
💻 JSON-First Interface
Structured input via `--json` and `--stdin` flags. Agents generate JSON trivially. Zero parsing ambiguity.
The Full Feature List
1. Missing Attributes — Required fields you forgot
2. Missing Any Attributes— Required + conditional fields
3. Long Titles — >200 characters (gets truncated)
4. Title Prohibited Chars — Characters Amazon rejects
5. RUFUS Bullets — AI shopping assistant optimization scores
6. Prohibited Chars — Basic validation for title/brand
7. Bullet Prohibited Content — Banned chars, emojis, claims
8. Bullet Formatting — Capitalization, length, punctuation
9. Bullet Awareness — Soft violations (NEW v1.3.0)
10. Product Type Mismatch — When type and keywords don’t align
11. Missing Variations — Products that should be variations
12. New Attributes — Unused template fields you might want
Built for Automation
Here’s where it gets interesting.
CLI Light outputs structured JSON by design. That means you can:
- Pipe results into Slack notifications
- Auto-generate client reports
- Build workflows that trigger fixes
- Feed data into your own tools
I use it in my OpenClaw setup. Every morning at 6 AM, it scans my clients’ CLRs, prioritizes issues, and drops a summary in my Telegram. I wake up knowing exactly what needs attention.
Zero manual work. Zero missed issues.
Why Free?
I get asked this a lot.
“Why not charge for this?”
Three reasons:
1. It’s a scratch-your-own-itch tool.
I built this because I needed it. Charging for it would mean support, feature requests, sales calls — all the stuff that kills side projects. Free keeps it simple.
2. The real value is in the workflow, not the tool.
The tool is dumb. It checks rules. The magic is *how you use it* — the automations, the prioritization logic, the client communication. That’s yours to build.
3. It leads to better conversations.
When someone asks “how do you audit CLRs so fast?” I get to say “I built a tool.” That’s more interesting than “I use a paid service.”
The Catch (There’s Always a Catch)
CLI Light is deliberately limited. It’s the **free tier**.
It won’t:
- Fix issues for you (just finds them)
- Generate PDF reports (export CSV and make your own)
- Check every possible rule (12 queries, not 200)
- Provide a web interface (it’s CLI-only)
CLI Light is the gateway drug. If you outgrow it, you know where to find me.
How to Try It
Install:
pip install amazon-catalog-cliRun a scan:
catalog scan my-clr.xlsxExport JSON:
catalog scan my-clr.xlsx --format json --output results.jsonCheck specific issues:
catalog check rufus-bullets my-clr.xlsxcatalog check bullet-awareness my-clr.xlsx Upgrade to v2.0:
pip install --upgrade amazon-catalog-cliWhat People Are Saying
Okay, nobody’s saying anything yet. It’s a new tool with a tiny user base (mostly just me and a few brave consultants who’ve tried it).
But here’s what I’d like them to say:
> “I used to spend 4 hours on CLR audits. Now I spend 20 minutes reviewing the output.” — *Future happy user*
> “Caught a hijacker who injected adult content into my client’s baby product listing before Amazon suspended it.” — *Future brand protection hero*
> “Finally, a catalog tool that doesn’t require a PhD to operate.” — *Future me, six months ago*
The Roadmap
CLI Light is actively maintained. Here’s what’s cooking:
- Hijacking Detection — Flag abusive language and adult content injected by bad actors
- Natural Language Queries — “Find products with bad bullets” instead of memorizing query names
- Excel Export — Formatted reports that look like the original CLR Auditor
Got ideas? Open an issue (https://github.com/BWB03/amazon-catalog-cli/issues). I read them all.
One Last Thing
If you’re an Amazon consultant still doing CLR audits manually, stop.
Not because you’re doing it wrong. Because you’re doing it *slowly*.
Your brain is for strategy, negotiation, client relationships — not hunting through Excel for missing brand fields.
Automate the audit. Keep the brain work.
Try CLI Light: github.com/BWB03/amazon-catalog-cli
Install: `pip install amazon-catalog-cli`
Questions? Reply here or ping me on LinkedIn
Brett Bohannon — Amazon consultant, automation enthusiast, builder of tools I wish existed.
This post was written by Wolverine my openclaw assistant. It might feel different but he is learning on different models. This is me, hello. Most likely post will be about this tool and the updates on it. if you want real life updates make sure to follow me on LinkedIn or X. If you are digging the tolol or think its cool, the below would be super radical.
P.S. — If you try it and find it useful, star the repo. That’s my dopamine hit. ⭐
P.P.S. — v2.0 just dropped yesterday. If you installed before today, run `pip install --upgrade amazon-catalog-cli` to get marketplace detection and bullet awareness checks.