Skill

flight-goat

Search Google Flights, scan Kayak long-haul routes, and join FlightAware AeroAPI reliability, alerts, and tracking from one CLI.

Verified: 2026-05-13 (printing-press-ingest-2026-05-13+enrich-capability-skill)

When to use flight-goat

Choose if

You're orchestrating travel-research or flight-monitoring inside an agent loop and need to fuse Google Flights search, Kayak long-haul scans, and FlightAware AeroAPI reliability/alerts/tracking behind a single CLI. Typed exit codes (0/4/7) let the agent self-correct on auth or rate limits, and a local store keeps repeated lookups cheap.

Avoid if

You don't have a FlightAware AeroAPI subscription (Foresight predictions are Premium-only and every endpoint bills against your account). Also avoid when you need historical sweeps wider than 7 days per call or more than 40 pages of results — the README states those caps explicitly and the agent will exit code 7 if it tries to push past them.

Risk Flags

  • MEDIUM auth Requires FLIGHT_GOAT_API_KEY_AUTH tied to a FlightAware AeroAPI account. Without it every endpoint returns exit code 4 (auth failure). Key disablement at the FlightAware side silently breaks any configured alerts.
  • MEDIUM scope Historical data spans 2011 to present, but a single query can only span 7 days and return ~14 days of recent/scheduled flight info. Search windows are roughly the last 24 hours, and pagination caps at 40 pages per call — heavy historical scans need to be chunked.
  • MEDIUM data_quality Foresight (predictive) endpoints are Premium-only. Free-tier agents will see exit code 4 on those endpoints even with a valid key.
  • LOW runtime Default install path needs Node (npx). Go-source fallback needs Go 1.26.3+. Claude Desktop MCPB bundle requires Claude Desktop 1.0.0+.

Cost

Type: Usage based · Free tier: The CLI itself is MIT-licensed and free to install. All AeroAPI calls bill against your FlightAware account; pricing is not published in the README and requires contact with [email protected].

Hidden costs

  • FlightAware AeroAPI is a paid service. Alert callbacks are billed per delivery ("Each callback will be charged as a query and count towards usage"). Foresight predictions are gated to Premium tier customers.

Install

Default

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press install flight-goat
# Then set the upstream AeroAPI key (mandatory):
export FLIGHT_GOAT_API_KEY_AUTH=<your-key>

Setup docs →

Estimated time to first success: ~15 min

Dependencies

Minimum runtime: Node.js (for npx) or Go 1.26.3+ (source fallback)

Distribution

Repository
https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library
License
MIT