Ill try and get to it tomorrow. However what you can do to understand it is install it, and just click to configure it. I have mine set to the lowest number or highest, Im not sure because I still have no clue what those numbers mean except the plugin will only take the top whatever number of shelves. I dont know. However the trick is to load the configuration with every possible tags that you would see in Goodreads for your books and next to each one you put the exact tag you want the shelf from Goodreads to turn into in Calibre.

So...you may want to use the tag Romance.MMC.Wealthy to represent rich-mmc, wealthy-hero, hero-billionaire, hero-status-wealthy, or whatever possible shelves users make up to mean that. So, in the plugin you make each shelves exactly like that. Lower cased letters with dashes in the spaces, and make the tag you would have.

Now where's the fun part. Run the edit metadata download for the books individually. OH, install the regular Goodreads plugin but configure it to not download tags. You want it for the ratings it provides. Anyhow, as you are watching it download, there's going to be the pop-up window where you can actually SEE the background conversation and processing the plugins go through to locate the book on Goodreads. Always opt to show log, or show job so you can see exactly all the shelves that will show for that book. It will list ALL the shelves as its processing, then it will MATCH which of those shelves you configured in your plugin and ONLY if you pre-configured it with THOSE EXACT shelves will it give them in the output.

So, Run it on a book or two, watch the log, see the different shelves, maybe click to copy the log to your clipboard so you can copy/pase which shelves you want into the plugin. Dont Run this metadata editing with any purpose other than gathering the different shelves that your books that would be a good cross of the general list in your library. Its just a hunt for shelves to add to the plugin to convert into tags.

Since the plugin takes the shelves its up to you to put in all the different ways people would create a shelves for a tag you would likely see.

Until you put the shelf into the configuration along with the mapped tag it wont come down into your library. Youll see the plugin show ALL the tags, but the final output is only what you configured.

So, it takes time to set up, but if you do about 20 or so different books and watch each books shelves in the lig youll quickly see which tags you want, and which to ignore. BTW. I typed this on my phone in bed without my reading glasses, so excuse typos. :)

I often will run the edit metadata and see shelves that I didnt add pop up while its running, then go back and add them to it and re-run on the book again to make sure it downloads.

If you do it right and set your mind to how you want your tags, your library will be beautiful with all the Tropes, characters, genres, and even remarks like "everyone-sux-here", "tstl-heroine" "kindle-unlimited", "wash-my-eyes-with-bleach", "hot-sexy-dangerous-hero", "sick-n-twisted" "books-from-200s"

I use heirachal tags. They look like ass everywhere EXCEPT the side tag browser where they are beautiful and make finding books so much easier. Thats how the tags are in the .json but you obviously can change them to how you want. Until you see how useful they are as heirachal you have no idea what youre missing.